Greer Gilman's Blog, page 86

'S nach till thu tuille

On 29 August 1930, the last of the St. Kildans left their island home forever.  There were 36 of them, their numbers dwindled by relentless hardship.  They lived on scant barley, sheep milk, seabirds and their eggs, got clambering on the dizzy rockface.  Ships brought necessities and gawkers; they brought plagues.  Smallpox in the 18th century.  Cholera.  Two-thirds of St. Kilda's children died of neonatal tetanus, endemic in their very earth:  the knife that cut the cord was mortal.  Their religion was the blackest Presbyterianism; they walked with downcast eyes amid astounding beauty.

In four centuries of their history, they knew neither murder not war.

And their young men sailed away.

Too few to live as they had lived, too few to marry and beget new children, they determined to remove.

The morning of the evacuation promised a perfect day. The sun rose out
of a calm and sparkling sea and warmed the impassive cliffs of Oiseval.
The sky was hopelessly blue and the sight of Hirta, green and pleasant
as the island of so many careless dreams, made parting all the more
difficult. Observing tradition the islanders left an open Bible and a
small pile of oats in each house, locked all the doors and at 7 a.m.
boarded the Harebell. Although exhausted by the strain and hard
work of the last few days, they were reported to have stayed cheerful
throughout the operation. But as the long antler of Dun fell back onto
the horizon and the familiar outline of the island grew faint, the severing
of an ancient tie became a reality and the St Kildans gave way to tears.

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"And sometimes I have a great notion..."

To stick my head out cautiously.  I'm starving for air in here.

Right now:  a large mild cushiony wind driving a slight fine mist of rain.  It's like being being biffed with down pillows.  But lovely to breathe:  it's huge.  Some rougher gusts, intermittently, up high.  Many twigs, leaves, acorns down, and some moderate branches.  The elms (so far) are standing.  The sun is trying to break through.

Really, it's like Bank Holiday in Whitby, only softer.  That stung.

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"Sometimes I live in the country, sometimes I live in town..."

My first memory is of Hurricane Carol.  Our house has a river in the backyard, so we went to my aunt and uncle's house on higher ground, above the falls.  What I remember is a strange purple living room, and grownups passing round a box of chocolates which were not for me.  That behind me:  I was looking out the window at a big storm and at little men in yellow putting sandbags on the dam.

I hope my mother's house is all right.  I worry about the low ground and the ancient willow, which has (in other storms) dropped branches big as full-grown trees.

The last hurricane we had here in the city, the wind was exactly perpendicular to the ridgepole of the house beneath my window, and the rain came over it in one heavy smooth relentless wave.

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One of Nine Weaving

Much to my delight, my poem "She Undoes" will be reprinted (in brilliant company) in the Aqueduct Press anthology of feminist speculative poetry, The Moment of Change, edited by Rose Lemberg.

It originally appeared in The Faces of Fantasy (1996!).

All thanks to sovay for nudging me.

Her "Matlacihuatl's Gift" (a Rhysling winner in 2003) will also appear in this asterism.

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Max

Here's an elegant self-mockery from his Yellow Book days.  (Click to embiggen.)


He knew absolutely everyone, poets and artists...













"Some Persons of 'The Nineties'"


...and loved to imagine past aesthetic coteries.













The Small Hours in the Sixties at 16, Cheyne Walk. — Algernon Reading "Anactoria" to Gabriel and William













Topsy and Ned Jones Settled on the Settle in Red Lion Square


He could be demurely impudent...

London in November, and Mr. Henry James in London



"…It was therefore, not without something of a shock that he, in this
to him so very congenial atmosphere, now perceived that a vision of the
hand which he had, at a venture, held up within an inch or so of his
eyes was, with an awful clarity being adumbrated..."




...downright malicious...

Mr Rudyard Kipling takes a bloomin' day aht, on the Blasted 'Eath, along with Brittannia, 'is gurl




...mischievous...













William Shakespeare, his method of work


...and rather naughty.













"Had Shakespeare asked me..."


Nine

A modest proposal

From Max Beerbohm's glorious Zuleika Dobson:


Luncheon passed in almost unbroken silence. Both Zuleika and the Duke were ravenously hungry, as people always are after the stress of any great emotional crisis. Between them, they made very short work of a cold chicken, a salad, a gooseberry-tart and a Camembert. The Duke filled his glass again and again. The cold classicism of his face had been routed by the new romantic movement which had swept over his soul. He looked two or three months older than when first I showed him to my reader.


He drank his coffee at one draught, pushed back his chair, threw away the cigarette he had just lit. "Listen!" he said.


Zuleika folded her hands on her lap.


"You do not love me. I accept as final your hint that you never will love me. I need not say--could not, indeed, ever say--how deeply, deeply you have pained me. As lover, I am rejected. But that rejection," he continued, striking the table, "is no stopper to my suit. It does but drive me to the use of arguments. My pride shrinks from them. Love, however, is greater than pride; and I, John, Albert, Edward, Claude, Orde, Angus, Tankerton,* Tanville-Tankerton,** fourteenth Duke of Dorset, Marquis of Dorset, Earl of Grove, Earl of Chastermaine, Viscount Brewsby, Baron Grove, Baron Petstrap, and Baron Wolock, in the Peerage of England, offer you my hand. Do not interrupt me. Do not toss your head.

"Oh, I never go in motors," said Zuleika. "They make one look like nothing on earth, and like everybody else."


"I myself," said the Duke, "use them little for that very reason. Are you interested in farming? At Tankerton there is a model farm which would at any rate amuse you, with its heifers and hens and pigs that are like so many big new toys. There is a tiny dairy, which is called 'Her Grace's.' You could make, therein, real butter with your own hands, and round it into little pats, and press every pat with a different device. The boudoir that would be yours is a blue room. Four Watteaus hang in it. In the dining-hall hang portraits of my forefathers--in petto, your forefathers-in-law--by many masters. Are you fond of peasants? My tenantry are delightful creatures, and there is not one of them who remembers the bringing of the news of the Battle of Waterloo. When a new Duchess is brought to Tankerton, the oldest elm in the park must be felled. That is one of many strange old customs. As she is driven through the village, the children of the tenantry must strew the road with daisies. The bridal chamber must be lighted with as many candles as years have elapsed since the creation of the Dukedom. If you came into it, there would be"--and the youth, closing his eyes, made a rapid calculation--"exactly three hundred and eighty-eight candles. On the eve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come and perch on the battlements. They remain there through the night, hooting. At dawn they fly away, none knows whither. On the eve of the death of any other Tanville-Tankerton, comes (no matter what be the time of year) a cuckoo. It stays for an hour, cooing, then flies away, none knows whither. Whenever this portent occurs, my steward telegraphs to me, that I, as head of the family, be not unsteeled against the shock of a bereavement, and that my authority be sooner given for the unsealing and garnishing of the family-vault. Not every forefather of mine rests quiet beneath his escutcheoned marble. There are they who revisit, in their wrath or their remorse, the places wherein erst they suffered or wrought evil. There is one who, every Halloween, flits into the dining-hall, and hovers before the portrait which Hans Holbein made of him, and flings his diaphanous grey form against the canvas, hoping, maybe, to catch from it the fiery flesh-tints and the solid limbs that were his, and so to be re-incarnate. He flies against the painting, only to find himself t'other side of the wall it hangs on. There are five ghosts permanently residing in the right wing of the house, two in the left, and eleven in the park. But all are quite noiseless and quite harmless. My servants, when they meet them in the corridors or on the stairs, stand aside to let them pass, thus paying them the respect due to guests of mine; but not even the rawest housemaid ever screams or flees at sight of them. I, their host, often waylay them and try to commune with them; but always they glide past me. And how gracefully they glide, these ghosts! It is a pleasure to watch them. It is a lesson in deportment. May they never be laid! Of all my household- pets, they are the dearest to me. I am Duke of Strathsporran and Cairngorm, Marquis of Sorby, and Earl Cairngorm, in the Peerage of Scotland. In the glens of the hills about Strathsporran are many noble and nimble stags. But I have never set foot in my house there, for it is carpeted throughout with the tartan of my clan. You seem to like tartan. What tartan is it you are wearing?"


Zuleika looked down at her skirt. "I don't know," she said. "I got it in Paris."


"Well," said the Duke, "it is very ugly. The Dalbraith tartan is harmonious in comparison, and has, at least, the excuse of history. If you married me, you would have the right to wear it. You would have many strange and fascinating rights. You would go to Court. I admit that the Hanoverian Court is not much. Still, it is better than nothing. At your presentation, moreover, you would be given the entrée. Is that nothing to you? You would be driven to Court in my statecoach. It is swung so high that the streetsters can hardly see its occupant. It is lined with rose-silk; and on its panels, and on its hammer-cloth, my arms are emblazoned--no one has ever been able to count the quarterings. You would be wearing the family-jewels, reluctantly surrendered to you by my aunt. They are many and marvellous, in their antique settings. I don't want to brag. It humiliates me to speak to you as I am speaking. But I am heart-set on you, and to win you there is not a precious stone I would leave unturned. Conceive a parure all of white stones--diamonds, white sapphires, white topazes, tourmalines. Another, of rubies and amethysts, set in gold filigree. Rings that once were poison-combs on Florentine fingers. Red roses for your hair--every petal a hollowed ruby. Amulets and ape-buckles, zones and fillets. Aye! know that you would be weeping for wonder before you had seen a tithe of these gauds. Know, too, Miss Dobson, that in the Peerage of France I am Duc d'Etretat et de la Roche Guillaume. Louis Napoleon gave the title to my father for not cutting him in the Bois. I have a house in the Champs Elysees. There is a Swiss in its courtyard. He stands six-foot- seven in his stockings, and the chasseurs are hardly less tall than he. Wherever I go, there are two chefs in my retinue. Both are masters in their art, and furiously jealous of each other. When I compliment either of them on some dish, the other challenges him. They fight with rapiers, next morning, in the garden of whatever house I am occupying. I do not know whether you are greedy? If so, it may interest you to learn that I have a third chef, who makes only souffles, and an Italian pastry-cook; to say nothing of a Spaniard for salads, an Englishwoman for roasts, and an Abyssinian for coffee. You found no trace of their handiwork in the meal you have just had with me? No; for in Oxford it is a whim of mine--I may say a point of honour--to lead the ordinary life of an undergraduate. What I eat in this room is cooked by the heavy and unaided hand of Mrs. Batch, my landlady. It is set before me by the unaided and--or are you in error?--loving hand of her daughter. Other ministers have I none here. I dispense with my private secretaries. I am unattended by a single valet. So simple a way of life repels you? You would never be called upon to share it. If you married me, I should take my name off the books of my College. I propose that we should spend our honeymoon at Baiae. I have a villa at Baiae. It is there that I keep my grandfather's collection of majolica. The sun shines there always. A long olive-grove secretes the garden from the sea. When you walk in the garden, you know the sea only in blue glimpses through the vacillating leaves. White-gleaming from the bosky shade of this grove are several goddesses. Do you care for Canova? I don't myself. If you do, these figures will appeal to you: they are in his best manner. Do you love the sea? This is not the only house of mine that looks out on it. On the coast of County Clare --am I not Earl of Enniskerry and Baron Shandrin in the Peerage of Ireland?--I have an ancient castle. Sheer from a rock stands it, and the sea has always raged up against its walls. Many ships lie wrecked under that loud implacable sea. But mine is a brave strong castle. No storm affrights it; and not the centuries, clustering houris, with their caresses can seduce it from its hard austerity. I have several titles which for the moment escape me. Baron Llffthwchl am I, and . . . and . . . but you can find them for yourself in Debrett. In me you behold a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, and a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Look well at me! I am Hereditary Comber of the Queen's Lap-Dogs. I am young. I am handsome. My temper is sweet, and my character without blemish. In fine, Miss Dobson, I am a most desirable parti."


"But," said Zuleika, "I don't love you."


The Duke stamped his foot. "I beg your pardon," he said hastily. "I ought not to have done that. But--you seem to have entirely missed the point of what I was saying."


"No, I haven't," said Zuleika.


"Then what," cried the Duke, standing over her, "what is your reply?"


Said Zuleika, looking up at him, "My reply is that I think you are an awful snob."


The Duke turned on his heel, and strode to the other end of the room. There he stood for some moments, his back to Zuleika.


"I think," she resumed in a slow, meditative voice, "that you are, with the possible exception of a Mr. Edelweiss, the most awful snob I have ever met."


*Pronounced as Tacton.


**Pronounced as Tavvle-Tacton.


Nine

O what is longer than the way?

Riddles set by sovay




1. What's the most interesting thing made with chocolate you have ever eaten?



I like my chocolate pure, dark, and daemonic. No wasabi, no lutefisk, no asafoedita. Though nowadays I do appreciate a little contrast, like citrus or creme anglaise.



(I would love to have your chocolate cake with raspberries again. My own is pretty quietly intense, if I say so myself.)



Wellesley used to serve Pompadour Pudding on state occasions: one each, young ladies, ruthlessly enforced. Little blue cups of baked custard, each with an adorable chocolate souffle for a hat.



Twenty-five years ago, my friend the CV and I raced around the Square with an ice chest, getting pints of chocolate ice cream for a serious tasting (with Bath Olivers and Perrier to clear the palate). The winner was a little hole-in-the-wall on Mount Auburn, long gone; they did a bittersweet with flecks.



Gus of Tosci's once made me up a tub of special dark bittersweet chocolate ice cream. He uses Valrhona. His brother at Rancatore's does another fabulous variant.



I have fond memories of the old Chocolate Fools Day in Cambridge, before they started doling out ten tickets for ten small bites of patisserie. Back then, a score or so of bakeries and restaurants would strive to out-dessert the others, for charity. They just heaped it up in Lucullan superfluity and opened the doors to the onslaught: a frenzy, fork-madness, a theobrosimachia.



Everything at Burdick's is to die for.



For sheer lunatic panache, I love the Finale extravaganza that looks like a Dadaist hat. It's like eating a story by Kelly Link.



Before that? The Dutch landscape in chocolate, windmill-crowned, Catherine-wheeled, that I had at the Vijff Vlieghen in Amsterdam in 1971. They dimmed the lights; the waiter bore it in, whirling sparks of colored fire.



2. What film character would you most like to spend time with?



Films mostly make me long for places, for elsewhere and otherwise and then. I want to walk down that green lane that camera skims, past the reapers in the rustling, and up into the hills. I want to browse Orlando's library. I want to embark for Mongolia.



And really, many of the characters I love in film would be intolerable in person.



Who do you think I'd get on with?



3. What's your favorite memory of spring?



Oh, bluebell woods. In Somerset and Yorkshire and Norfolk, over several years. They're all part of the great wood, as all scraps of blue are one sky.



Fall and winter are my seasons here; but the English spring is astonishing.



(I cheated on the Cloudish fall; it's fierier than England's.)



4. What time would you like least to have lived through?



The Holocaust.



5. Who would you sing back from the dead for a day?



Right now my mother: there are things unsaid.



But calling back the dead makes me uneasy. Is it right to command them? I'd rather journey to meet them, if I could get there and back.



But oh, I want so much to have tea with madamebuttery . I so want to talk with DWJ; I didn't get to visit her these last few years, and now I never will. And I'd give anything to hear all the Watersons together again. If I were lost they'd sing me back.




Nine

"...a bare bright ship-attic..."

All this year I've been going back and back to my mother's house, back to the underworld, like a rapid-cycling Persephone.  What keeps me going is the serendipity.  Oh, there's the feather hat!  She kept all those valentines?  How did that saber get into my closet?


This time, I found boxes of my juvenilia, from lamentable childhood poetry (some on shirt cardboard) to college pastiches.  


Here's a letter I wrote from the other Cambridge on October 20, 1974:  "Quite by fortune, this afternoon I visited Green Knowe..."
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Nine

From the DEEP of time came...

Happy Birthday!

to my dearest eldritch and primeval negothick  

                          from your antediluvian agemate,

                                                                 Nine

child among the weeds

Undated watercolor (1970?)

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