A man is forced to sacrifice either his career or his wife’s happiness.
Lady Florence Bell (1851-1930) wrote only a few novels late in the Victorian period; this one features an interesting dilemma and vivid characters.
“In spite . . . of a flavour of improbability, the story is brightly written and full of that sort of incident which goes home to the English novel-reader. . . . The characters are all clearly drawn society people of a typical sort.” Manchester Guardian, November 13, 1901
“Mrs. Hugh Bell combines an original plot with a very clever study of some of those cross-relations and duties of family life to which she has given so much critical attention. Her story has also the charm of the unexpected. . . . There is a quiet, but very pleasant, readableness about the whole of this novel.” Spectator, December 7, 1901
William Dyce, Piety—The Knights of the Round Table about to Depart in Quest of the Holy Grail
This is the first of a projected series of 81 puzzles honoring the multiplication table, which I intend to publish as a mnemonic aid for grade-school students. After that I’ll honor the periodic table of elements with a series of 118 or 119, depending on whether ununennium is discovered in the meantime. And then, concluding my table series series, I’ll honor the Knights of the Round Table: Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain, Sir Galahad, Sir Bagdemagus, Sir Segwarides, Sir Gumret le petit, Sir Bleoberis de Ganis, Sir. . . well, according to one medieval source, there were 1600 of them; and their table, allowing each knight three feet of space (which, given the armor involved, is not particularly generous), must have taken up over 42 acres. Since their puzzles, posted at the rate of one per fortnight, will take up over 60 years, I may have to omit a few.
George Scharf, View of the “Three Compasses” Inn and St Mary’s Church, Hornsey High Street
In an obscure and charmless town, a clergyman is falsely accused and ostracized.
The Rev. Albert Eubule Evans, a Church of England clergyman, published some 14 novels between 1870 and 1894. For didactic novels he used his own name; for popular novels like this one he used the pseudonym Roy Tellet. Despite its forbidding title it provides an entertaining coincidence-laden plot and much amusing social satire.
“It is one of the best novels of the year, full of stir and diversity of interest, and with a sufficiently curious and original plot to satisfy and please even those most familiar with the resources of the tale-writer in producing careers strangely embarrassed by crime or error, and yielding situations marvellously tragical and awakening the keenest sympathies. ‘Roy Tellet’s’ is a strong hand, which wields the brush with singular and versatile power, and furnishes brilliant and startling, and never unpleasing, effects.” Irish Times, March 10, 1892
“Pastor and Prelate is not a book that goes at all out of its way to be clever: its style, its incidents, and its characters are for the most part usual enough; but they are ‘intensely’ usual—that is to say, they are not in the least ordinary. A misguided person might for a little think that they were this. . . . But if he be not hopelessly misguided. . . . it will become pleasingly evident to him that . . . the handling of all these things is not ordinary at all. . . . ‘Roy Tellet’ knows his craft, knows how to write a novel, and has written one. . . . All the people are alive, the writing without being pretentious is crisp and individual, and the whole thing is good.” Academy, May 14, 1892
William Etty, Musidora: The Bather “At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed”
Facing uncertainties is, of course, inevitably a part of life. Will we live to extreme old age or succumb all too soon to accident or disease? Will our crosswords be hailed by a grateful world, or neglected through ignorance, prejudice, and bad taste? In any case, we must hope for the best and do our duty, as I do every week on this website.
A self-involved would-be musician bedevils her cousin’s life.
Here is another novel by Sidgwick, for whom see Novels082,142,200and258.
The title character is “an exaggeration” but “near enough . . . to a reality of the present day to be worth satirizing.” Bookman, January 1892
“It is a sombre tragedy, told with a simplicity and directness which heightens its effect. The obvious criticism that might be made is that all the characters are slightly exaggerated. . . . But this exaggeration, which would be a defect in a more elaborate book, really adds to the vividness of this short sketch; too much care bestowed on fine distinctions of light and shade would have weakened the strength and distinctness of the rapid impression so admirably given.” Athenaeum, January 14, 1892
John Lavery, Viscount Morley Addressing the House of Lords
I always feel foolish talking to machines, because I think they’ll think I think they can think, and I don’t know how to ensure that they know that I know that they’re machines that don’t know anything.
Three sisters’ marriage prospects are impaired by heavy encumbrances on the family estate.
About Laurence Brooke nothing seems to be known, except that he wrote four novels between 1879 and 1882, of which this was the last.
“Mr. Brooke is without doubt a very vivacious writer, and he has well differentiated the separate individualities of his Three Fair Daughters.” Academy, July 8, 1882
“Mr. Brooke is content to build his story on the familiar lines; he aims at nothing extravagant or eccentric, and he achieves a decided success. . . . . In fact, this is a novel which evidently shows real literary skill and no small acquaintance with his craft in its author.” Spectator, September 30, 1882
This puzzle should not be taken as an endorsement of those tasteless social events from which women are excluded (except as performers). In fact I find the idea of “stag parties” in that sense distinctly disagreeable. But if forest creatures wish to gather for their own festive purposes, I do not feel that I, from my necessarily anthropocentric subject position, have any right to condemn them.
Frederic shows “a knack of description which is clever and the reverse of wordy”; he is “a close and shrewd observer of certain human and natural phenomena.” Athenaeum, December 3, 1887
“Mr. Frederic’s novel is distinguished by its firm grasp of unhackneyed material, its realistic portraiture of life in a rural region, its repose of manner, its masterly dealing with unusual types without descent to caricature.” Literary World, December 10, 1887
“Very good indeed—simple but exceedingly workmanlike in construction, and with a really strong capable grasp of character.” Academy, December 17, 1887
“A capital story, full of point, vigour, humour, and dash.” Saturday Review, February 18, 1888
Despite the author’s inexperience, “there is no fumbling, tentative work; the author evidently knows just what he wants to do, and he does it simply and in a direct, businesslike fashion. The book has the fine finish which is characteristic of the work of the new American school of novelists, but Mr. Frederic, unlike some of his contemporaries, has provided himself with material which is worth finishing.” Spectator, February 25, 1888
“The by-play in the romance is excellent, the story is brightly written, and the little touches of sarcasm are neatly injected.” New York Times, September 27, 1891
“A vigorously conceived and delicately finished work of art. . . . an unusually good novel.” Academy, October 10, 1891
“Mr. Richard Pryce has written two or three very clever books, but he has not previously given us anything that is at once so able and so pleasing as Miss Maxwell’s Affections.” It is “one of the most enjoyable of recent novels. The portraits of women . . . are painted with such subtle truth that, had Miss Maxwell’s Affections been published anonymously, we should have had hardly any hesitation in assigning it to feminine authorship. . . . The book is rich in humour, for the most part of the subtle rather than of the obvious self-advertising order, nor is it lacking in passages of very beautiful and winning tenderness and pathos.” Spectator, October 21, 1891
Work hard, believe in yourself, and there is nothing in this world you cannot do!—except things that are impossible for everybody, like flying unassisted or becoming invisible; or things you must be especially endowed by nature to do, like winning a marathon; or things you have to have the right social connections to do, like publishing a crossword (invitation only!) in the New Yorker.
In the south of Ireland, a disinherited family lives amid squalid poverty and futile political agitation.
May Laffan Hartley (1850-1916) published several stories and five novels, of which this was the last; she struggled with mental illness and ended her life in a psychiatric asylum.
It is “marked to a singular extent by . . . strength, breadth of humour, and impartiality. . . . No one who is anxious to fathom the enigma of the Irish character will be deterred . . . from the careful study of what we have no hesitation in pronouncing to be the most valuable and dispassionate contribution towards the solution of that problem which has been put forth in this generation in the domain of fiction. . . . There is a ‘sweet wildness and unusualness’ about the scenes and characters in which we move which is distinctly captivating, and yet it is hard to say whether pain or pleasure predominates in the impression left on the mind after a perusal of the volumes. For the picture which the author gives of her compatriots is relentlessly faithful, and excites compassion and repulsion in an almost equal degree. The squalor, suspicion, and greed which are met at every turn in the mutual relations of the peasantry are illustrated with such a wealth of detail as can only be the outcome of intimate acquaintance and close observation. ‘Ismay’s Children’ contains a whole gallery of portraits, gentle and simple, some more elaborately finished than others, but of singularly uniform excellence. . . . These are living human beings who let us know what manner of men they are out of their own mouths. They are not mere lists of qualities catalogued by the author when they are severally introduced, but, as in real life, we only come to know them gradually. The pages of ‘Ismay’s Children’ are full of excellent sayings and characteristic anecdotes, all the more telling for the absence of any conscious effort to bring them in.” Athenaeum, October 15, 1887
Hartley “is as witty, as humorous, as keen-sighted, and, alas! as pessimist as ever. . . . She paints the foibles and faults of the people she knows so well with a brush steeped in black. . . . She is like the good housewife who boasted that, if she had no ear for music, she had a wonderful eye for dirt. . . . And what tends to intensify the reader’s despondency into despair is the apparent hopeless acquiescence of the author’s mind in the necessary perpetuation of the sores she probes so ruthlessly. She sees no possible cure. Her people are squalid, dirty, lying, superstitious, and dishonest. The meanest vices are made compatible with an unsimulated profession of piety and a fervid observance of the rules of the Church. Some of the most amiable and lovable of her personages are tainted with inherent insincerity and untruthfulness. Squalor is the one element she cannot omit from her canvas. If a hospitable priest or an amiable old lady offers her guests refreshment, the biscuits must be sodden and the seed-cake mouldy. . . . The author is absolutely just and fair-minded. Landlords and tenants, priests and parsons, are treated by her with the same placid, cruel impartiality. And yet, with the unpleasing materials she chooses to work upon, the author of Ismay’s Children gives us a novel which charms us in our own despite. If her pathos merges too readily into tragedy the gentler passion is never quite swallowed up by the sterner.” Saturday Review, November 19, 1887
“Though it has, as it could hardly fail to have, some gleams of very genuine humour, it is, as a whole, much too sad a book to be commended to people who demand cheerfulness in their reading; but those who are content to forego even cheerfulness for the sake of power, pathos, and unrelenting veracity of imagination, will find in Ismay’s Children a novel to their mind. . . . In spite of the gleams of gaiety which must find their way into any picture of Irish life, the book as a whole is a very sombre one. Still, sombre as it is, it is too rich in beauty, impressiveness, and pathos to be dismissed in any other words than those of grateful appreciation.” Spectator, November 26, 1887
Sir William Quiller Orchardson, In the Picture Gallery
My last crossword exemplified art’s ability to lift us out of the finite worldly sphere and into the eternal; today’s exemplifies art’s complementary responsibility to represent the truth of that worldly sphere with uncompromising fidelity, however vile, however filthy, however offensive it may be. In doing so it confronts the shibboleths and pieties of our society, forcing us to reckon with the evil that lurks around and within us all.
A schoolmaster passes his vacation with an ailing student at a seaside resort and there meets an attractive pair of sisters.
Moira O’Neill was the pen-name of Agnes Nesta Shakespeare Skrine, nee Higginson (1864-1955), an Irish poet who wrote just a few works of fiction, including this unassuming novella.
“Slight as is the story, at least it is a page out of real life, cleverly reflecting the conventions and tone of a highly respectable ‘set.’ . . . What is sufficiently evident here is her power of watching and marking the finer play of certain minds with whom presumably she is in sympathy.” Bookman, April 1893
It is “a story about nothing in particular, and it amuses and pleases for no definite reason either. . . . Man, from woman’s point of view, is treated with quiet sagacity and humour.” Athenaeum, April 8, 1893
“It is a novel with an attractive cultivated air, written in admirable English by a writer with a good knowledge of society, and with a keen eye for character”; there is no “aggressive display of cleverness, . . . it pleases in a quiet way by being always simply right.” Academy, April 15, 1893
That’s right—not baseball, but paronomasia. This is another of a series of puzzles on this website that encourage you to move from the physical to the mental, from the material to the spiritual; that offers you a way to transcend the vile, dust-choked, filth-smeared circumstances of earthly existence and approach the empyrean realm where the soul communes with eternity.
“There is a certain measure of brightness and originality in ‘A Winter's Tale,’ though if judged by a mere outline of the plot it would seem commonplace enough. The story is not particularly pleasant; but several passages in it are entertaining and cleverly written.” Athenaeum, March 7, 1891
“Quite a delightful story. The plot is slight, but the workmanship is delicate throughout, like a fine ivory carving. With a few light illustrative touches she causes each of her characters to live—the dialogue has the sparkle and crispness of light everyday badinage.” Saturday Review, March 21, 1891
Laura Theresa Epps Alma-Tadema, The Persistent Reader
You might have learned in your high-school or college English class to extract a profound, concealed meaning, unsuspected by the thoughtless masses, from some classic work of literature. “Emma,” you might have found, is really a protest against the patriarchy, “Huckleberry Finn” a celebration of homoerotic desire, “Hamlet” a representation of incestuous obsession, etc. This sort of thing is a lot of fun, once you learn how. But why go to all the trouble of reading some long-winded classic when you can do much the same thing solving a 78-word puzzle?
In New York City, a young married man loses his fortune and is forced to make a living.
“Bright, fresh, and interesting.” Academy, September 21, 1889
“A clever and lively novel”; the plot is “highly ingenious.” Athenaeum, March 1, 1889
“A lively story.” Saturday Review, July 19, 1889
A contrasting view:
“If we could hear such a tale, as agreeably told, some leisurely summer afternoon, we would not consider the twenty minutes required to tell it wasted by raconteur or audience. But this is a printed book, 387 pages long, and there is a great deal we ought to read in this world, and very little time to do it in.” Hartford Courant, May 22, 1889
Today’s puzzle’s title is of course drawn from the warnings commonly found on packages containing machine-readable documents or frame-worthy prints. But for me it’s also a motto to live by. When I’m faced with a dispute, having taken care in advance to place myself beyond all doubt on the right side, I refuse ever to compromise, knowing as I do that any deviation from my side must arise from some fundamentally wrong and probably evil motive in my opponents, dishonestly concealed. Rather than bend in any direction, I vilify those opponents ever more scurrilously, until either they or I tire of arguing. This may not get anyone anywhere, but it passes the time, and it helps me feel good about myself, which is after all (on the advice of my therapist) the point of most everything I do.
