Emily Sarah Holt

 Between 1868 and 1893, Emily Sarah Holt (1836-1893) published just over 40 historical novels, as well as a few biographies, tracts and a work of social history. Nearly all of her work was published by John F. Shaw and Co., of London, which kept some of her novels in print through the late 1920s. There is a good article on Holt by  Miriam Elizabeth Burstein, in Clio's Daughters: British Women Making History, 1790-1899 edited by Lynette Felber (University of Delaware Press, 2007), where she comments: Holt's project is both vast and ambitious. She constructs an explicitly Protestant and reactionary history of Britain through fiction in order to oppose the dangers of both Roman Catholicism and Anglo-Catholicism...Holt represents an exceptionally energetic case of the antitolerationist position. Burstein examines Holt's fascination with John Wycliffe and the Lollards, which she explored in both fiction and biography; for Holt, I suggest, Lollard conversion and martyrdom model an ideal mode of Christian being-in-history. I have all of Holt's historical novels - bar five - many in first edition.

       

          Her first was Mistress Margery (1868)     Her last was The Gold that Glitters (1896)

I append the full list below, which shows her fascination with the mid-14th to the late 16th centuries. This is explained by her focus on Lollardy and the Tudor Reformation (which included the horrors of Mary's reign). The books in Red in Bold Font I have in first edition. Those in Red in Italic Font I have New Edition copies. Those in Black font I have no copies of.

The Monument to the Holt Family at St. Saviour's Church, New Line, Bacup

'The Hidden Target' (1980) and Cloak of Darkness (1982) - two more Helen MacInnes

We are now about 40 years on from Helen' MacInnes's first novel - Above Suspicion (1941) - and have reached the 1980's (although the story is set, as usual a couple of years earlier).

 

                                    First edition - 1980                    Fontana paperback

I feel MacInnes is really back on form with The Hidden Target. It is a longer and 'deeper' book than  some of her previous ones. The characters, 'good' and 'bad' were drawn out and, in the case of the former, more likeable. Perhaps, it was pleasing to get away from the decent amateur American hero and concentrate on actual agents - again, on both sides. There is as much detail, and explanation (not condoning their belief or actions, however) given to the anarchist/communist individuals as to the NATO figures. From an urban guerrilla cell in  Essen, West Germany to a finale in Washington, the book takes in London, Belgium, a camper van's trip across Europe to Turkey, Iraq, Iran and India and further activity in New York and California.

Three top Western agents are killed - one by an umbrella tipped with ricin (MacInnes certainly kept up to date: Georgi Markov had been assassinated on a London street via a micro-engineered pellet containing ricin, fired into his leg from an umbrella wielded by someone associated with the Bulgarian Secret Service. It is likely the Russian KGB helped. The attack took place on 7 September 1978. He died in hospital four days later.) There are also attempts on other NATO/CIA lives.

MacInnes makes reference to her previous book, Prelude to Terror, as a bit of a side player in that story, Robert Renwick, reappears in one of the main roles this time. The Vienna escapade is recalled, as well as the girl agent killed at the very end. Crefeld's (Dutch counter espionage chief) eyebrows knitted. "Why the hell do we have to employ women, Bob?" he burst out. "Because they are often better than a lot of men." Renwick thought of his own loss, back in Austria. Almost two  years now. Avril Hoffman ... no, he couldn't forget her... He cut off his memories. Avril was dead. "Also," he went on, "they volunteer. They want a mission that will mean something. Just try keeping women out of intelligence work, Jake, and you'll be picketed from here to Greenland." Ironically, it is three women enemy agents who are used quite effectively: the first, Crefeld's own trusted secretary, Luisa, ensures his death-by-umbrella; secondly, Greta, enrolled at University College, London as Dr. Ilsa Schlott from Stockholm on a course on tropical diseases, is responsible for ensuring Nina O'Connell and Madge Westerman, two American students studying in London, are enticed on to the camper van trip. This is led by two Communist-trained agents, and joint founders of the People's Revolutionary Force for Direct Action,  Marco and Kurt Leitner (really Ramon Olivar, born in Venezuala) masquerading as Tony Sawfield, an Englishman, and James Kiley, an American. Their plan is to set up/encourage revolutionary cells all along their route to the Far East. The third woman, Therese Colbert, is having an affair with Renwick in Brussels. A skilful communist agent, she very nearly achieves the main aim of the enemy plot - to bomb the American President. Thanks to Renwick and O'Connell, in their different ways, it is nullified and Colbert is arrested.

When the camper stops in Amsterdam there is a chance meeting up between Nina and Robert Renwick. Six years ago, as a 15 year-old, Nina had met the then 33 year-old in Geneva when Renwick had been at a disarmament conference as a NATO expert. The eighteen-year gap in age was less important than Nina's youth - as we find out during the book!  MacInnes uses all her narrative skills to drive the quite intricate plot forward. Another link with Prelude to Terror, is that money sent to Geneva by the Communist scheme then, now ends up financing the Sawfield/Kiley trip.

The ending doesn't appear forced. By this time both Marco and Kurt have been arrested, as have Greta and Therese; their main handler, Theo (Herr Otto Remp aka Herman Kroll, KGB agent) and his sidekicks have been killed or committed suicide; and Renwick and Nina set to get married - they had better, having had sex since their time in Bombay! An idea, drawn up by Renwick and others of like minds, to create Interintell - like Interpol - for international sharing of intelligence against enemies such as communists and anarchists, begins to bear fruit. Watch this space, and the next book!

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I looked up reviews on her books on the Amazon website and was not surprised to find comments such as 'dated', 'period piece', 'from the WWII generation'... However, one reviewer was more thoughtful - and correct! - when they added but the ethical dilemma isn't outdated. Too true. MacInnes charts the threats from totalitarian states and anarchists, from the Nazis in the 1940s to the Communists (usually Russia) during the Cold War. Well, we still have an authoritarian system in Russia, even if the USSR has been dismantled; and it has been joined by the far more dangerous and powerful totalitarian Chinese People Republic, led by a ruthless dictator with more power than Stalin ever had at his finger tips. Whilst not forgetting the dangers from the maverick North Korea, the evil theocracy of Iran, the near anarchy of the Isis threat, the monomania of Putin; the awful likelihood of a Third World War breaking out emanates from China above all. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, India, Vietnam and other south-east Asia countries are very aware of the enemy in their midst. Let us hope we have not left the neutering of this vermin too late.

I hadn't intended to read another MacInnes novel straightaway, but I saw that Robert Renwick was again a major player in the next one - Cloak of Darkness. So, off I went!

 

                                    First edition - 1982                   Fontana paperback

Cloak of Darkness deals with the secret, shady world of international arms dealers. Robert Renwick now takes centre stage. He is now married to the delicious, much younger Nina; his brainchild, Interintell (International Intelligence against Terrorism) has been set up with its HQ in London; and Erik is on the loose again - all subjects dealt with in The Hidden Target. Keppler, based in Switzerland reappears (from Pray for a Brave Heart) an there are the usual twists and turns. The sense of place and MacInnes's strong moral code are firmly entrenched, too. The story switches from London to Washington (and Colin Grant, now running the late Victor Basset's 20 acre museum, also in Prelude to Terror) and then to Chamonix. Renwick is one of those on a Death List and there is also a List of important Westerners who have been compromised. There is a tense outcome in the High Alps, an uncovering of a once-trusted friend and a happy reunion for Renwick and Nina: 'Magic, you are pure magic, darling.' He picked up her suitcase and slipped an arm around her waist as they began walking toward the street.

A brace of Helen MacInnes again

These two spy novels take Helen MacInnes well into the 1970s, doing as she usually did, making the plot and action describe events only a year before the publication. Agent In Place (1976) and Prelude to Terror (1978) keep to the format that served her so well over the previous two decades. The danger of reading all her twenty odd books over only a few months is that the reader can get a little weary with repetition. The plots are similar in that there is usually an amateur American, aged between 30 and 40, who has seen service in Korea and now works as a news correspondent or as an Art connoisseur, who travels to Europe (Italy, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Germany or Austria) and gets mixed up with enemy agents, usually communists. He links up with, willingly or unwillingly, with the CIA and, often, the British to foil whatever dastardly plot is going on. There is usually a young woman, 25 to 35, who is also another amateur or a Western agent whom he falls for. For a reader in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s - what was there not to like?! The Cold War was at its height, with enemy agents two-a-penny in Western Europe, with some deep undercover in the USA and in the Western spy agencies themselves.

 

                                      First edition - 1976                 Fontana paperback

Agent in Place is, essentially, a warning by MacInnes about two of the most dangerous types in the espionage game: the idealist in a position of trust and the 'deep sleeper' agent who is activated after many years. These are Charles 'Chuck' Kelso, working at the Institute for Analysis and Evaluation of Strategic Studies,  and Rick Nealey (Alexis), communications director to Congressman Pickering of the House of Representatives, respectively. A NATO Memorandum is temporarily stolen by Chuck to release partially to the Press but Rick manages to photograph the entire document, which includes Western agents' names etc. MacInnes' voice is heard early on: Americans were smart - a considerably enemy and one that posed a constant danger - that was what had been dinned into him (Alexis) in his long months of training; but after nine years in Washington, he had his doubts. What made clever Americans so damned stupid once they got into places of power?

The story unfolds in New York and Washington and then moves to the Mediterranean resort of Menton, where both the Russian and the NATO intelligence forces gather. Chuck's brother, Tom, gets involved with his beautiful wife Dorothea; as does Tony Lawton (late thirties? early forties? His voice was attractive...he retained that warm smile and gentle humour in his talk..) a much travelled Wine Merchant - or is that just a 'cover'?! Sure enough 'the' MacInnes girl surfaces: Nicole, French...a fragile-looking girl, small-boned, who could carry the latest fad in fashion...Yes, thought Tony...she was very good in every way... However, she plays a very minor role in the story and it's only in the final chapter that she returns, determined to resign as an agent. She then leaves with a "See you some time" on a telephone call. It feels almost as an afterthought that MacInnes slips in a final 22 lines so that Tony and Nicole can drive off into the sunset. All the 'baddies' were killed, one particularly effective self-blowing up with a boat, or rounded up. I had the odd feeling that the book, good though it read, was a little bit of a rushed job. It was mildly claustrophobic (like Message from Malaga). The bitterness about some Americans, seen in previous novels, was there too:

The all-too typical American of the day: who worried about what happened to other men in other places? Especially when they were espionage freaks, spooks worried in a maze of threat and danger - their own choice, wasn't it? Probably their own creation, too. They did it for kicks or the money, everyone knew that. (Read your friendly local newspapers.) Saving the West? Me included? That's a big laugh. All part of their own hothouse fantasies. Who's threatening me - little men in black pyjamas? Look, get rid of the ego-trippers, the paranoiacs. Then we can all make nice profits and get promotion and enjoy our skiing and our suntanning...

Between this book and the next, MacInnes's husband, Professor Gilbert Highet, died. Could that account for the above and parts of the following book?

 

                                      First edition - 1978                 Fontana paperback  

MacInnes was back on form with Prelude to Terror and in her beloved Vienna/Austria again. The novel was dedicated To Gilbert, my dear companion, who has gone ahead on the final journey. Colin Grant (the amateur American not quite 40) has to go to Vienna to bid for a valuable landscape by the 17th c. Dutch master, Ruysdael for Victor Basset, a very wealthy American collector. It is being sold for a Hungarian who hope to use the money once he escapes to the West. However, all is not what it seems. Grant also want to get over his wife's senseless and brutal murder by a teenager in a Washington Street only ten months' earlier. This trip to Vienna, a much-needed diversion for Grant, leads to murder with his own life in danger throughout the rest of the book.

Occasionally he remembers his wife: Not even grief stayed the same. In these last few days, so much had filled his mind, so much had kept him moving, that no time had been left for bitter memories, or - let's face it, he told himself - for self-pity. Was that really what intense preoccupation with private sorrow could degenerate into? Grief for the past that overwhelmed the present, cut off the future?...there were some who began to mourn more for their own loss than for those who had been snatched away from them. Surely, that came from MacInnes's own heart. 

Moreover Grant meets up with Avril Hoffman, an English girl and one of the NATO agents assigned to his 'case': This girl's eyes were dark brown, not blue; her features were less perfect, pretty but not startlingly beautiful... And Avril plays a major role in the story, even getting kidnapped (but then rescued) by the communists. Grant, for his own safety, after successfully bidding for and extracting the painting from communist plans, finally ends up in a remote house in a remote Alpine village - with Avril. One difference in her novels of even a few years previously, is that MacInnes now brings (tasteful) sex into her story line: Avril and Grant sleep together at the chalet. The following morning Grant moved over to the bed, stood watching her. It was a sleep so perfect that he couldn't bring himself to disturb it. He touched her rumpled dark head, felt a strange mixture of emotion suddenly grip him, sheer exaltation of joy and happiness, or relief and thankfulness. Gently, his lips touched the smooth curve of cheek, the firmness of her neck, the rounded shoulder... Avril is then moved to the safety of a nearby farm, while Grant waits for the Russian agent. The denouement, when it comes, was not what I expected. Avril races back with a warning, shoots at the enemy and is in turn shot - dead. I didn't quite 'buy into' that; in particular, Grant although, of course, upset (he had also been wounded) then decides that his future plan should be to volunteer to become a USA agent. Just as, for centuries, the ideal career was to become a Minister in the Church (particularly the Scottish Presbyterian version) now it appears, to MacInnes at least, that the highest calling should be a CIA Agent! Grant bows out with the final paragraph: He rose and went indoors to pack. Tomorrow was an early start. And just keep going, he told himself. That's all you can do. That's all any of us can do.

A Carol Reed tri-umph

I broke away from inputting books into my new Library database to watch three Carol Reed films over three nights. Although I have watched his most famous output - The Third Man (1949), which has been called the greatest film of the 20th century - I had not seen any of these three. Reed was the illegitimate son of the famous theatre actor and theatre manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Sir Carol Reed (1906-1976)

Born in 1906, he was educated at the King's School, Canterbury. His career began to develop with The Stars Look Down (1940). He made his most highly regarded films just after the Second World War. He was only the second British film director to be knighted (1952) for his craft; the first being Sir Alexander Korda (1942).

  

                     1947                                         1948                                         1952

Odd Man Out - set in Belfast (although the city is never named) - is the story of Johnny McQueen, the leader of an illegal organisation (The IRA) who shoots a man dead during a raid. On the run, himself badly injured, Johnny hides in a variety of down-and-out places. Reed, unlike Hitchcock, much preferred to be out on location and he uses the city's derelict and seedy backdrops to excellent effect. James Mason is compelling as Johnnie. Kathleen Ryan plays his long-suffering girlfriend (the Irish actress herself was to have a chequered career, dying aged only 63) and there are strong supporting roles from a mainly Irish cast. Robert Newton gives his usual over-the-top cameo as Lukey, a crazed artist who desires to paint the death in Johnnie's eyes. The ending is rather stylized - almost Christ-like - but the film keeps it grip on you and deservedly won the 1st BAFTA  Award for the Best British Film of the year.

The Fallen Idol also won the same BAFTA for the following year. It tells the story through the eyes of seven year-old Philippe and (although, apparently, the boy had the attention span of a gold fish) Carol Reed exhibits his known skill of getting the best out of a child actor - this time one with no previous acting experience. Ralph Richardson, as the butler who has seemingly murdered his housekeeper wife, brings intelligence and under-stated realism to his role. It was interesting to catch Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Keen and James Hayter in bit-parts. Reed had parted company with J. Arthur Rank (whom James Mason, apparently, was not keen on) and was now productively linked with Sir Alexander Korda (Producer) and Graham Greene (writer).

The Man Between perhaps is unfairly compared to The Third Man. Reed collaborated again with James Mason - a world weary Ivo Kern, who has retained more decency than Harry Lime could ever muster. His love for the young English schoolteacher Claire Bloom leads him to try one last misguided trip across the Berlin east-west divide (no Wall yet). As with post-war Vienna, Reed ensures all the misery of a bombed-out city is shown in stark realism. But no concert zither as the sound track!

The Special Features with each DVD are a bonus: a James Mason 1972 interview with The Fallen Idol; interviews with the young boy (as a 70+ year-old) Robert Henrey and Assistant Director Guy Hamilton with The Fallen Idol; and an interview with Claire Bloom on The Man Between.

I must watch The Third Man again soon - for the umpteenth time.

1949

Mind Your Language with 'The Spectator'

I look forward to Fridays (not just because I was a teacher) but because, usually The Spectator lands in the post box. I find, nearly all, the contributors well worth reading - both those who agree and those who disagree with my views. Whether it's Bruce Anderson on 'Drink'; Tanya Gold on 'Food'; Taki's High Life, Jeremy Clark's Low Life or Melissa Kite's Real Life, I am usually entertained and feel the better for the read. The cartoons can make me chuckle, too. My blind spots are The Turf, Bridge and Chess.

25 July 2020

I must admit, I don't always read in depth Dot Wordsworth's Mind Your Language slot, but usually skim through the piece. This week's (25th July 2020), I found particularly interesting as I had no idea of the origins of the word cancel.

The cancel culture wants to obliterate people who do, or more often say, the wrong thing (for example, that there are such things as women) or even pronounce a taboo word. Taboo words have long been with us. The taboo word fuck was not even included in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet today the dictionary prints far worse words.
...In the 19th century, railway tickets were cancelled by clipping; indeed a scissor-like punch was known as a pair of ticket cancels. Postage stamps, the other glories of the Victorian era, were cancelled, often with Maltese crosses. But cancel originally meant to cross out writing using a lattice of pen lines. This is because in Latin cancelli meant 'bars of lattice-work'. On an ancient Roman basilica (a non-religious place of public assembly and a court of justice), these lattice bars marked off the part where the judges sat. The screened-off part later gave the name to the chancel in a church...
Not many people knew all this; I certainly didn't!

Two Nineteenth Century Welsh Idylls/Ideals 1896/1897

I have moved from Scotland - and the Mendips - to Wales, to read two books of the 1890s which, at first sight, appear to be modelled on the kailyard stories of MacLaren and others. The first novel is by Alfred Thomas - In the Land of the Harp and Feathers: A series of Welsh Village Idylls (H. R. Allenson, 1896).

    

First edition - 1896

The tale is a straightforward one, set in the South Wales village of Wengroes (White Cross), where the narrator, Ivor Meredith, has been appointed as schoolmaster. My work was the parent of my difficulty. The worthy villagers looked upon me as ranking next to old Mr. Jeffers, the Calvinistic Independent Minister of Wengroes Chapel - for was it not in the "vestry" of the little chapel that I daily met my scholars face to face?...there was the Rector of the parish, of course; but he didn't count. Whereas old Mr. Jeffers bowed reverently to the Rector every time they passed, the latter, like the priest of old, "passed by on the other side" with never a nod of recognition. Ivor lodges with Gomer and Gwenny Shinkin (Jenkins), who refuse to take money for the bed and board (Ivor sends payment "from a friend" regularly). Gomer works down the Pit, responsible for checking the safety of the props.

The village, and the novel, revolves around the Chapel - the stern doctrines of Calvinism impregnated every fibre of their being, and they really endeavoured to conduct themselves in strict accordance with their rigid creed... they not only believed in the merits of the blood of a personal Saviour, but also that there was a Judgement to come, in which they would have to give an account of the deeds done in the body. The cottage prayer meetings were an institution integral to Wales at the time, being held in even the poorest member's cottage. They were far from being merely Sunday-go-to-Meeting events; it requires grit to be a Calvinist Christian. As Alfred Thomas writes, the first necessity of a sincere people must always be a Religion. Sincerity breeds a desire for truth, and not only the Truth but the whole Truth. One is encouraged in this through the Sunday School, the great Training College of Wales; Ivor Meredith was the Secretary of the Wengroes Sunday School.

The chapters are quite short and they often concentrate on a particular villager - old Mari Walby, who is found dead by her family Bible, waiting for the Prayer Meeting to be held in her tumble-down cottage ; Griffy John, the trader, who is ruined due to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in January 1846, as a result of his buying up of a mass of English grain on behalf of his fellow villagers just prior to the flood of cheaper (and better) grain from the USA. Much later on, he gets his reward with a brand-new emporium built through an unknown well-wisher (Gomer Shinkin in fact); Lewis Hopkin, the 60-year-old reprobate who finds "religion" and becomes a model citizen. Above all, the story centres on Gomer Shinkin, who is left a considerable sum by an old school friend whom he saved from shipwreck when both had gone to sea as lads. The latter dies in Australia and leaves his wealth to Gomer, who spends it on rebuilding the Chapel and other good deeds. The novel ends with his death, during the very service which re-opened the building. As Alfred Thomas avers: Love is the currency which prompts the noble actions of the honest poor, and not gold.

Of course, there are elements of the Scottish kailyard stories here; there is even a kindly old doctor, Dr. Llywelyn, at hand. But the tales are rarely of the cloying kind and there are few 'purple patches'. Thomas has no time for the Chartists, commenting on the November 1839 March on Newport, that  the leaders of the mob succeeded only in making both themselves and their cause ridiculous and contemptible. But he is not blind to the hard, cruel, selfish, and avaricious world beyond Wengroes. There was hard work, and plenty of it at Wengroes, but slavery did not exist there. It is only in the towns they manufacture slaves. All in all, the book seems a pretty accurate and empathetic tale.

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There has been a long gap between this blog and the one above - the longest in my short blogging career! The reason? A marvellous internet own-Library database has been set up for me by my son:    https://www.libib.com/library/home . It allows you to enter up to 5,000 books - with an illustration of the front cover or, if too boring or dark, the title page. You put in title, author, publisher, date of publication, number of pages, type (e.g. Scottish Nineteenth Century; Poetry; Biography). Absolutely 'spot on' for my needs. Although I have just over 8,000 books, this includes paperbacks and pamphlets - most of which I don't want to record. It is unlikely that I will enter my 400+ Oxford World's Classics volumes or my John Buchan Collection either. As of today (26th July) I have just reached 565 books; slow going, but I want to do it properly and scanning takes time.

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As for the second Welsh book, a clue lies in the title - "Ideals" rather than "Idylls".

  

First edition - 1897

Once again, the story revolves round the chapel and the pit. There is also a Gomer - Gomer Williams, a young miner who desperately wants to train for the Non-conformist Ministry. His progress through the book is almost saint-like, on occasions too much so, when the purple passages overwhelm the 21st century reader and the heavenly trumpets sound at the end when Gomer became in the years that followed the acknowledged prince of the Welsh pulpit, shook the astonished land with his matchless eloquence, and kindled in the heart of the people loftiest inspirations and ideals that shall never die.

Twice, Gomer rescues colleagues in pit disasters; once he saves his arch enemy (who wanted the same girl), in a raging tempest on the brink of a cliff. The author argues, in his Preface, that it is the main purpose of the following pages to pourtray [sic] customs and traditions, struggles and aspirations, ideals and idylls, in a typical centre of Welsh village life. Well, it certainly beats Ambridge or Emmerdale! Garth-y-coed has "the king", John Tudor, who gives his life to save Gomer down the pit; Dai Hopkin the Bard; Raymond the Eccentric; Tom Jones the Atheist; the joint mine owners and their families - Mr Wynne, his evil son Ned; Mr Pennant and his unscrupulous and arch-snob wife, who refuses to sanction Gomer's relationship with her daughter Lucy.   Then there is Gomer's widowed mother whose face was sweeter and whose heart was purer for the touch of early sorrow...deeply religious, but her religion was as natural as the song of the skylark; and his sister Annie, who adores him. The old Minister, Rev. Paul Hughes, guides Gomer through the 'valley of the shadow' successfully; Mr. Pennant comes to see Gomer as the ideal for his daughter and surreptitiously supports their love (and Gomer's fees to go to Brasdir Training College), but dies before the end of the tale. 

Throughout the book there is this love story; in fact, two love stories. The first, that of childhood sweetheart Gwen Richards, brought up by her sorrowing father John, a prosperous tradesman, and living at Bryn Villa. Gomer never knows, until a dying confession by Gwen (in fact, she recovers and leaves the area with her father!) of her deep love for him. The successful love is that of Gomer and Lucy Pennant; a triumph of Dissent over the Establishment; of a miner from Garth-y-coed over the snobbery of some of the household at Plas Newydd. Gomer's I had rather remain in the coal-pit all the days of my life than be faithless to the truth and his powerful preaching wins him the heart and soul of Lucy: The splendid impressiveness and enthusiasm of a Welsh Non-conformist service came upon her with the accentuated force of virgin freshness. Its grand spontaneity, its sublimity of inspiration, its concentrated force of spiritual power, the resistless rush of its mighty enthusiasms, and the almost ecstatic intensity of its worship were to her like the unveiling of a new spiritual realm. Neither the sober culture of the Anglican church at Penyrafon nor Lucy could withstand it.

This is a powerful book, redolent of its time; the author absolutely gives his all to conveying his message. There is little humour - in the Chapter "A Ghost Mystery and its Solution" and a trifle at the Eisteddfod at Penyrafon at the end of the tale, where Gomer (of course) is Chaired as the Bard. The contemporary novels of Ian Maclaren and other Scots writers rarely hit the intensity of John Thomas. The Ideals are writ large, even Mrs Pennant's for her belief in class distinction. I am glad I read the book even if (perhaps, because?) its fervour seemed to record long-ago ideals and ways of life. Now the pits are gone and the chapels have been knocked down or converted into private homes or garages. Is life the better for this? I somehow doubt it.

'The Cottagers of Glenburnie' (1808) by Elizabeth Hamilton

Elizabeth Hamilton (1756-1816) was born in Belfast to a Scottish merchant and an Irish mother. Her father died while she was still a baby and she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle who owned a farm near Stirling. Attending a day school from the age of eight, her formal education finished in her early teens. She was a voracious reader, particularly of moral and educational philosophy.

She lived in London for a time and later in Edinburgh. In 1804, she was awarded a pension from King George III for her contribution to religion and virtue. She became a well-known and respected author, her portrait being painted by Sir Henry Raeburn. She died in Harrogate in 1816.

     

First edition - Manners and Miller 1808

Hamilton's novel, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, tells the story of a retired servant, Mrs Mason, who returns to Scotland in 1788 to stay with Mr Stewart of Gowan-brae and his two daughters, Bell and Mary. The first five chapters (to page 115) mainly consist of Mason telling her hosts the story of her life. The reader quickly understands why the author was given an award for promulgating religion and virtue. She responds to Mary Stewart's wish for a friend like her: And have you not a friend, a guide, and a supporter, in Him who called you to these trials of your virtue? Consider my dear young lady, it is your Heavenly Father who has set the task, - perform it as unto Him, and when you have to encounter opposition, or injustice, you will no longer find them intolerable.  Two pages on, she is in full flow: My mother taught me the only true road to obedience, in the love and fear of  God... Throughout the book Mrs Mason dispenses such bon mots and many who met her, let alone the 'modern' reader, would probably find her intolerable! She may have come up against other, more worldly - and unpleasant - servants and demanding mistresses, but she always won through. One feels that when Mrs Mason approached the Pearly Gates, she would be moved to the front of the queue.

The reader arrives at the village of Glenburnie, with Mr Stewart and Mrs Mason, on page 132. She is to lodge with her cousin Mrs MacClarty and her unruly family. The motto for this farmer's wife, in fact most of the village, is cou'dn be fashed. The standard of the MacClarty house and garden is appalling - dirty and unhygienic. The elder MacClarty daughter was morose and sullen, the younger stupid and insensible. Their usual answer is: I'll no be at the fash...

Mrs MacClarty and her daughters

There is a humorous description of Mrs Mason's room and, particularly, her bed: her pillow was full of new but still damp feathers, which were consequently full of the animal oil, which, when it becomes rancid, sends forth an intolerable effluvia. Mrs Mason tries, unsuccessfully to persuade the mother that discipline and correction leads to positive results. but perhaps I interfere too far. Well, yes! She tries again: believe me, cousin, habits of neatness, and of activity, and of attention, have a greater effect upon the temper and disposition than most people are aware of. Later she says to herself: Surely I must be of some use to the children of these good people. They are ill brought up, but they do not seem deficient in understanding; and if I can once convince them of the advantage they will derive from listening to my advice, I may make a lasting impression on the minds. Not on the MacClarty family, even with the tragic death of the farmer. Hoots, says Mrs MacCarty, my bairns are just like other people... Moreover, the goodwife has a point when she says: Ilka place has just its ain gait and ye needna think that ever we'll learn yours. And indeed to be plain wi' you, cusin, I think you have our many fykes (fussing over trifles). It's no good Mrs Mason rejoining, this fear of being fashed is the great bar to all improvement.

 Interspersed throughout the tale are paeons to the good Lord and his beneficence: Let the poor then praise Thee...let the lowly in heart rejoice in thy salvation, and so on. Chapter XVII has a particularly over-the-top purple passage about the Almighty, which occurs when Mrs Mason returns to Glenburnie: Yes, all the works of God are good and beautiful: all the designs on Providence must terminate in producing happiness and joy.  Well not for the MacClarty family or for Methodists. She castigates the latter as enthusiasts who persuade converts that a state of grace is enough, giving as an example another servant, Sally, whose divine raptures were quoted by some of these pious visionaries, as a proof of saintship.(pp. 103-4). In this, later Chapter, she returns to the charge: I have seen so much malignity, so much self-conceit, and presumption, among these professors of evangelical righteousness, that I should suppose their doctrines were at war with the pure morality of the Gospel...I am convinced that much might have been done to stop the progress of methodism, by setting forth, in strong and lively terms, the sin and danger of exalting any one point of the christian doctrine, so as to make it pre-eminent, to the disparagement of the other Gospel truths, and to the exclusion of the gospel virtues. She sees Methodist zeal in making converts as based on pride.

Hamilton had already written Letters on Education (1801) and Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education (1801), and running through her novel is the vital importance of a good education (not just in the three R's and crafts but in sound morals and correct worship of God). This reaches its height in the penultimate Chapter XVIII, Hints concerning the Duties of a Schoolmaster. They are more than just Hints! Between Mr Gourlay, the local Minister, and Mr Morison, appointed schoolmaster of Glenburnie on Mrs Mason's advice, the school becomes a magnet for parents far and wide. With the additional (financial) support of Mr and Mary Stewart and young Lord Longlands (whom Mrs Mason had saved from a fire as a three year-old), the buildings and surroundings are totally reconstituted and the boys and girls, after some struggles, transformed into model pupils. Mr Morison's first object being to train his pupils to habits of order and subordination, not by means of terror, but by a firmness which is not incompatible with kindness and affection. Mrs Mason eventually retires from supervising the girls, taking possession of a pretty cottage on Lord Longlands' estate. In that sweet retreat she tranquilly spent the last days of a useful life... Hear! Hear! 

PS: I liked the reference to Glasgow: Glenburnie women exclaim Glasgow, by a' accounts, is an unco place for wuckedness: but than wha can wonder, whar there's sae mony factories.

Ian Campbell is not kind to Hamilton or to her creation Mrs Mason: an instrument of didactic instruction dull beyond words, insensitive to her environment, and incapable of doing more than transmitting received ideas to her pupils. Campbell regards Hamilton's picture of Scotland as crude and static and compares her unfavourably with Sir Walter Scott and John Galt.