91
When she was ten, Catherine Morland showed none of the qualities needed to impress the ladies who read romantic fiction.
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, published after her death in 1817, is a playful swipe at contemporary women’s fiction. She begins by warning us that Catherine Morland had not experienced the kind of childhood — marked by fragile beauty, precocious accomplishments, and sentimental attachments — that fans of romantic fiction expected in their heroines. She was, in fact, perfectly normal.
Posted December 21 2023
92
Sir Edward Leithen finds himself revising his opinion of the ‘detestable’ Koré Arabin.
Sir Edward Leithen, a forty-something lawyer of great distinction, ran across Corrie Arabin at a dance party given by his cousin-of-sorts, Mollie Nantley. ‘The girl is detestable’ was his first thought. But after Corrie — or more rightly Koré, a Greek name — turned to him for help in resolving a legal dispute with Athens, Ned’s feelings for the young woman began to change.
Posted December 19 2023
93
Ahab, his mind broken by an obsession, at last confronts the enemy he has hunted so long.
Ahab, captain of a whaling ship, has been pursuing a huge albino sperm whale he calls Moby Dick, with an ever more deranged hatred. At last he has come to close quarters: he has boarded a small a boat, harpoon at the ready, and rowed out to face the object of his obsession while sharks circle in a frenzy of anticipation. Suddenly, the whale charges headlong — not at Ahab’s boat, but at the ship.
Posted December 16 2023
94
John Bright dismissed fears that digging a tunnel under the English Channel would encourage a French invasion.
In the 1880s, when the idea of a Channel Tunnel was being seriously considered in Parliament, senior ministers warned anxiously and apparently seriously of the dangers of encouraging a French invasion. John Bright, who as President of the Board of Trade had been strongly in favour of the project, made no attempt to conceal his scorn when he spoke to constituents in Birmingham on June 15th, 1883.
Posted November 17 2023
95
Perhaps European harmonisation would make life easier, but that would be only the beginning.
Just after the Second World War, Dorothy L. Sayers, creator of dashing detective Lord Peter Wimsey, reflected on Britain’s reluctance to be gleichgeschaltet (‘brought into line’) by the Germans. Setting aside extreme measures taken by Mr Hitler, might it not make life easier if the people of Europe all followed the same rules? It might, Sayers admitted. But it wouldn’t end there.
Posted November 17 2023
96
Odysseus recalls meeting Tantalus and Sisyphus, for whom relief was everlastingly beyond their grasp.
Odysseus, King of Ithaca, is sailing homeward after taking part in the Siege of Troy. Looking back, he recalls how on Circe’s advice his journey took him to the black rivers of Hades, and how at the confluence of the Periphlegethon and the Cocytus he offered sacrifice. A pale crowd of the shades of men rose about him, and among them were Tantalus and Sisyphus.
Posted November 15 2023