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Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies
This supernatural love story features a device that induces telepathy between sympathetic parties and ultimately leads to communication with the dead. The characters' troubles and turmoils parallel the author's actual experiences, this being the most autobiographical of his novels, with many deeply personal passages.
370 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1904
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87 people want to read
About the author
H. Rider Haggard
1,580 books1,095 followersSir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and the creator of the Lost World literary genre. His stories, situated at the lighter end of the scale of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential. He was also involved in agricultural reform and improvement in the British Empire.
His breakout novel was King Solomon's Mines (1885), which was to be the first in a series telling of the multitudinous adventures of its protagonist, Allan Quatermain.
Haggard was made a Knight Bachelor in 1912 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1919. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Conservative candidate for the Eastern division of Norfolk in 1895. The locality of Rider, British Columbia, was named in his memory.
His breakout novel was King Solomon's Mines (1885), which was to be the first in a series telling of the multitudinous adventures of its protagonist, Allan Quatermain.
Haggard was made a Knight Bachelor in 1912 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1919. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Conservative candidate for the Eastern division of Norfolk in 1895. The locality of Rider, British Columbia, was named in his memory.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 22, 2025
Another of Haggard's Victorian (well, this came out in 1903, so I guess technically Edwardian) contemporary novels of romantic melodrama, this time around with just the barest hint of science fictional elements.
Spoilers below for a 120+ year old novel.
The players this time are:
Morris Monk (a young would-be inventor who's been trying to perfect an aerophone which, as described, sounds sort of like a set of walkie-talkies? IIRC, each pair of units would only be able to talk to each other, although the whole thing is very far from the focus of Haggard's story); Morris lives with his father, the Colonel, who has managed, mostly without the knowledge of his son, and not through any real fault of his own, to leave the family accounts exhausted and the family lands encumbered.
Mary Porson, Morris' attractive cousin, who lives with her father (the Colonel's brother-in-law), whose circumstances are considerably less straitened; in point of fact, her fairly wealthy father has been floating the Colonel loan after mortgage after loan.
Stella Fregelius, who enters partway through the book, newly-arrived with her father because he's come to take the local parish priest position.
The Colonel, needless to say, thinks it would be great if Morris (who never really evinced any interest in young ladies) would up and get married, preferably to someone in line to inherit considerable funds. The other local ladies being entirely unsuitable, well, Mary really is an attractive girl, isn't she?
I tell you, I won't live in a town that robs men of the right to marry their cousins!
So, with a bit of nudging by both of their respective fathers, Morris and Mary come to an Understanding, at which point Mary and her father (due to his ill health) promptly depart for more healthful climes in France.
And very shortly after they depart, the ship bringing Stella and her father to Monksland founders on the rocks and Morris very bravely sails out to the wreck where he finds and rescues Stella (who was left on the wreck by the panicked sailors, although they did rescue her father despite his broken leg) and Stella really is a remarkable sort of woman, isn't she?
And then Stella and Morris spend much of the rest of the book forming an extremely intimate but entirely proper (no throbbing biological urges here!) relationship as she helps him perfect his aerophone; and despite the best efforts of a particularly nasty local young woman (one of the ones Morris had previously deemed unsuitable; and worse yet, her brother proposed to Stella and was completely rebuffed), when Mary returns after her father's demise, she's extremely understanding about the whole situation and has no doubt whatsoever as to Morris' innocence, and Stella (for the record, Stella and Morris come to the conclusion that they are, in fact, truly, madly and deeply in love with one another, but they can Never Act Upon It in this world because Mary) plans to leave them forever by going to London and singing and playing the violin, but alas!, tragically drowns when the ruined church on the shore is lost to the sea, along with several hundred feet of shoreline, and of course she spends the last moments of her life talking to Morris on the aerophone.
And then Morris and Mary do get married and have a reasonably happy couple of years (and couple of children) before Morris discovers and read Stella's journals, gets reobsessed with her and eventually (even more spoilers) dies because he's too busy trying to conjure her spirit to settle down with a good meal.
And that, as they say, is that.
And again, it was a very readable but not especially memorable book and Haggard really does like his doomed romances and tragic triangles, doesn't he?
Spoilers below for a 120+ year old novel.
The players this time are:
Morris Monk (a young would-be inventor who's been trying to perfect an aerophone which, as described, sounds sort of like a set of walkie-talkies? IIRC, each pair of units would only be able to talk to each other, although the whole thing is very far from the focus of Haggard's story); Morris lives with his father, the Colonel, who has managed, mostly without the knowledge of his son, and not through any real fault of his own, to leave the family accounts exhausted and the family lands encumbered.
Mary Porson, Morris' attractive cousin, who lives with her father (the Colonel's brother-in-law), whose circumstances are considerably less straitened; in point of fact, her fairly wealthy father has been floating the Colonel loan after mortgage after loan.
Stella Fregelius, who enters partway through the book, newly-arrived with her father because he's come to take the local parish priest position.
The Colonel, needless to say, thinks it would be great if Morris (who never really evinced any interest in young ladies) would up and get married, preferably to someone in line to inherit considerable funds. The other local ladies being entirely unsuitable, well, Mary really is an attractive girl, isn't she?
I tell you, I won't live in a town that robs men of the right to marry their cousins!
So, with a bit of nudging by both of their respective fathers, Morris and Mary come to an Understanding, at which point Mary and her father (due to his ill health) promptly depart for more healthful climes in France.
And very shortly after they depart, the ship bringing Stella and her father to Monksland founders on the rocks and Morris very bravely sails out to the wreck where he finds and rescues Stella (who was left on the wreck by the panicked sailors, although they did rescue her father despite his broken leg) and Stella really is a remarkable sort of woman, isn't she?
And then Stella and Morris spend much of the rest of the book forming an extremely intimate but entirely proper (no throbbing biological urges here!) relationship as she helps him perfect his aerophone; and despite the best efforts of a particularly nasty local young woman (one of the ones Morris had previously deemed unsuitable; and worse yet, her brother proposed to Stella and was completely rebuffed), when Mary returns after her father's demise, she's extremely understanding about the whole situation and has no doubt whatsoever as to Morris' innocence, and Stella (for the record, Stella and Morris come to the conclusion that they are, in fact, truly, madly and deeply in love with one another, but they can Never Act Upon It in this world because Mary) plans to leave them forever by going to London and singing and playing the violin, but alas!, tragically drowns when the ruined church on the shore is lost to the sea, along with several hundred feet of shoreline, and of course she spends the last moments of her life talking to Morris on the aerophone.
And then Morris and Mary do get married and have a reasonably happy couple of years (and couple of children) before Morris discovers and read Stella's journals, gets reobsessed with her and eventually (even more spoilers) dies because he's too busy trying to conjure her spirit to settle down with a good meal.
And that, as they say, is that.
And again, it was a very readable but not especially memorable book and Haggard really does like his doomed romances and tragic triangles, doesn't he?
February 12, 2025
(1904)
“Why don’t you invent a machine to enable people at a distance to see as well as to hear each other? It would be very popular and bring Society to utter wreck.”
I needed something small and contemplative after reading I, Claudius. So, from Claudius to Fregelius. But it’s funny how much more entertaining this ethereal, sometimes hallucinatory world was. Haggard is far, far from blood-stained Africa in this one, in Trollope territory, and shows himself very much at home.
“I cannot see the commercial use of this invention. As a scientific toy it may be very well, though, personally, I should prefer to leave it alone, since, if you go firing off your thoughts and words into space, how do you know who will answer them, or who will hear them?”
There’s also a hint here of HG Wells, in the combining of science with the spiritual. I’m wondering if Haggard invented the trope where a modern gadget—in this case a kind of proto walkie talkie—is used to channel the supernatural.
“There are some notes in your voice which really reduce me to the condition of peeping Thomas…”
This book was written in 1898, 6 years before publication. Haggard wrote it for himself. He only published it after encouragement from his editor. Even still he apologized for it in a preface. And at times you really do feel as if you’re spying on a private fantasy. The author poured his heart out in this work, the old romantic. During some scenes I felt a little indiscreet being there, so to speak.
“The music swelled, it told of dead and ancient wars… and in it rang the scream of the Valkyries…”
Of course, this being Haggard—whose Saxon half could never fully be tamed—his idea of romance is a beautiful woman singing about Norse warfare.
In his autobiography he said the moral of the story was to not go poking your nose into spiritualist investigations, for, even excluding fraud, they are “snares” our Arch-Enemy sets “in the narrow path to catch the feet of men and drag them down to doom.“ (It sounds crazy out of context but the full passage is more reasoned). Yet what else is this repeated theme of his—of loves that exist outside space and time, and whose mortal forms seem almost incidental outcroppings of their immortal ones—but spiritualism? The protagonists suggest that Christianity may accommodate such beliefs, and that’s probably how the author felt.
What pulls you along, however, is mostly the marriage plot, with all its lovers and rivals and attendant uncles and neighbors. Is this the first story where a relationship is threatened by a character having a near-death experience with a stranger?
“Not a bit,” answered the Colonel cheerfully. “I am an old student of human nature, and I rather enjoy it; it’s like watching the puppets on a stage. Only we mustn’t let the comedy grow into a tragedy.”
This feeling of quasi puppetry sums up Haggard’s handling of his story, which again is the Trollope method (or rather the Thackeray one). Observing the foibles of the silly players is part of the pleasure. That colonel, by the way, is a fun character, both foolish and wise, selfish and thoughtful—not a puppet, in short, and the scene where he very savvily tells off a gossipy girl is fantastic.
The theme of this thematically complex work is fate (the name Stella is derived from star), but the hidden theme is the question of how to look on marriage—the internal conflict of what is both a sacred and a temporal bond. Haggard later illustrates this when the fiancée Mary explains away (convincingly) Stella’s mysticism as so much motivated reasoning, however unconscious. Mary represents one side. Indeed this extends to life and death itself. When she buys her husband a chronometer to replace his dead mother’s watch, it’s her way of reminding him that life is for the living. No one liked pondering death more than Haggard, but what he’s written is a cautionary tale about just that.
I have no idea why I suddenly decided to read this, which is obscure even among Haggard’s domestic novels, except for a vague desire to reward him for every time he ventured from his Lost Race security blanket. Now and then I feel like the boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes. I gape at his output and want to say, “Did you seriously write dozens of novels about the same thing just because that was your first hit?” I don’t think it was necessary for him to stick to his formula to the letter. Haggard said he would rather work in politics or law than write novels, but fiction brought the money in. Never has there been a greater artist with a more mixed artistic temperament. Then again he also said he wrote to please himself, and hoped it pleased others too. It’s possible he was just one of those artists who liked doing variations on the same theme. For example there seem to be a score of novels exploring loving another woman. In any case I don’t think Haggard knew what was best about him. All his favorite moments in his books are my least—those Shakespearean speeches and protracted battle scenes.
I’m still searching for the Haggard novel that combines all the strengths and none of the weaknesses of his writing. This isn’t quite it. (It adds new strengths and then neglects old ones). My 5 stars are largely in appreciation for the way he gives himself over to his singular vision, following it to whatever very unusual place it may lead. Some might get fidgety by the end, or find the premise too old-fashioned. I always eat up unfashionable things, however, and so for me Haggard’s grand dwellings on fidelity and death, and just the whole sincerity of the thing, make up a veritable banquet.
“…the Colonel went away somewhat weary and sorrowful. For once he had seen too much of his puppet-show.”
The weird romance is quite sad.
____
Marginalia:
*There’s a curious uniformity to the story’s households: three widowers and their only surviving child.
*The main character goes from an electrician to an experimental physicist to an inventor. Funny to think what “electrician” meant back then. Maybe something like an engineer.
*Allusion to Giuseppe’s Tartini’s The Devil’s Trill Sonata. Stella calls it in her diary “one of the weirdest and most wonderful bits of violin music in the world. I know that I was almost crying when I finished it.”
Quotes:
“‘Yes, I know, Colonel; but I am not certain that this first cousin business isn’t a bit exaggerated. The returns of the asylums seem to show it, and I know my doctor, Sir Henry Andrews, says it’s nonsense. You’ll admit that he is an authority. Also, it happened in my own family, my father and mother were cousins, and we are none the worse.’ On another occasion the Colonel might have been inclined to comment on this statement… Now, however, he let it pass.”
“Why don’t you invent a machine to enable people at a distance to see as well as to hear each other? It would be very popular and bring Society to utter wreck.”
I needed something small and contemplative after reading I, Claudius. So, from Claudius to Fregelius. But it’s funny how much more entertaining this ethereal, sometimes hallucinatory world was. Haggard is far, far from blood-stained Africa in this one, in Trollope territory, and shows himself very much at home.
“I cannot see the commercial use of this invention. As a scientific toy it may be very well, though, personally, I should prefer to leave it alone, since, if you go firing off your thoughts and words into space, how do you know who will answer them, or who will hear them?”
There’s also a hint here of HG Wells, in the combining of science with the spiritual. I’m wondering if Haggard invented the trope where a modern gadget—in this case a kind of proto walkie talkie—is used to channel the supernatural.
“There are some notes in your voice which really reduce me to the condition of peeping Thomas…”
This book was written in 1898, 6 years before publication. Haggard wrote it for himself. He only published it after encouragement from his editor. Even still he apologized for it in a preface. And at times you really do feel as if you’re spying on a private fantasy. The author poured his heart out in this work, the old romantic. During some scenes I felt a little indiscreet being there, so to speak.
“The music swelled, it told of dead and ancient wars… and in it rang the scream of the Valkyries…”
Of course, this being Haggard—whose Saxon half could never fully be tamed—his idea of romance is a beautiful woman singing about Norse warfare.
In his autobiography he said the moral of the story was to not go poking your nose into spiritualist investigations, for, even excluding fraud, they are “snares” our Arch-Enemy sets “in the narrow path to catch the feet of men and drag them down to doom.“ (It sounds crazy out of context but the full passage is more reasoned). Yet what else is this repeated theme of his—of loves that exist outside space and time, and whose mortal forms seem almost incidental outcroppings of their immortal ones—but spiritualism? The protagonists suggest that Christianity may accommodate such beliefs, and that’s probably how the author felt.
What pulls you along, however, is mostly the marriage plot, with all its lovers and rivals and attendant uncles and neighbors. Is this the first story where a relationship is threatened by a character having a near-death experience with a stranger?
“Not a bit,” answered the Colonel cheerfully. “I am an old student of human nature, and I rather enjoy it; it’s like watching the puppets on a stage. Only we mustn’t let the comedy grow into a tragedy.”
This feeling of quasi puppetry sums up Haggard’s handling of his story, which again is the Trollope method (or rather the Thackeray one). Observing the foibles of the silly players is part of the pleasure. That colonel, by the way, is a fun character, both foolish and wise, selfish and thoughtful—not a puppet, in short, and the scene where he very savvily tells off a gossipy girl is fantastic.
The theme of this thematically complex work is fate (the name Stella is derived from star), but the hidden theme is the question of how to look on marriage—the internal conflict of what is both a sacred and a temporal bond. Haggard later illustrates this when the fiancée Mary explains away (convincingly) Stella’s mysticism as so much motivated reasoning, however unconscious. Mary represents one side. Indeed this extends to life and death itself. When she buys her husband a chronometer to replace his dead mother’s watch, it’s her way of reminding him that life is for the living. No one liked pondering death more than Haggard, but what he’s written is a cautionary tale about just that.
I have no idea why I suddenly decided to read this, which is obscure even among Haggard’s domestic novels, except for a vague desire to reward him for every time he ventured from his Lost Race security blanket. Now and then I feel like the boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes. I gape at his output and want to say, “Did you seriously write dozens of novels about the same thing just because that was your first hit?” I don’t think it was necessary for him to stick to his formula to the letter. Haggard said he would rather work in politics or law than write novels, but fiction brought the money in. Never has there been a greater artist with a more mixed artistic temperament. Then again he also said he wrote to please himself, and hoped it pleased others too. It’s possible he was just one of those artists who liked doing variations on the same theme. For example there seem to be a score of novels exploring loving another woman. In any case I don’t think Haggard knew what was best about him. All his favorite moments in his books are my least—those Shakespearean speeches and protracted battle scenes.
I’m still searching for the Haggard novel that combines all the strengths and none of the weaknesses of his writing. This isn’t quite it. (It adds new strengths and then neglects old ones). My 5 stars are largely in appreciation for the way he gives himself over to his singular vision, following it to whatever very unusual place it may lead. Some might get fidgety by the end, or find the premise too old-fashioned. I always eat up unfashionable things, however, and so for me Haggard’s grand dwellings on fidelity and death, and just the whole sincerity of the thing, make up a veritable banquet.
“…the Colonel went away somewhat weary and sorrowful. For once he had seen too much of his puppet-show.”
The weird romance is quite sad.
____
Marginalia:
*There’s a curious uniformity to the story’s households: three widowers and their only surviving child.
*The main character goes from an electrician to an experimental physicist to an inventor. Funny to think what “electrician” meant back then. Maybe something like an engineer.
*Allusion to Giuseppe’s Tartini’s The Devil’s Trill Sonata. Stella calls it in her diary “one of the weirdest and most wonderful bits of violin music in the world. I know that I was almost crying when I finished it.”
Quotes:
“‘Yes, I know, Colonel; but I am not certain that this first cousin business isn’t a bit exaggerated. The returns of the asylums seem to show it, and I know my doctor, Sir Henry Andrews, says it’s nonsense. You’ll admit that he is an authority. Also, it happened in my own family, my father and mother were cousins, and we are none the worse.’ On another occasion the Colonel might have been inclined to comment on this statement… Now, however, he let it pass.”
August 23, 2011
At the beginning of his 25th novel, "Stella Fregelius" (1903), H. Rider Haggard deemed it necessary to offer an apology to his public. In this brief foreword, the author warns prospective readers that "Stella" is not one of his typical tales, and one with "few exciting incidents." Indeed, those expecting the typical Haggardian mix of lost races, African adventure, big-game hunting, massive battle scenes and historical sweep may be disappointed with this book. However, I feel that Rider Haggard need not have bothered with an apology, as "Stella Fregelius" turns out to be one of his most beautifully written, deeply felt and truly romantic works.
The story here concerns one Morris Monk, a British inventor who is trying, when we first meet him, to perfect a device that he calls an "aerophone" (it seems, from the description, to be a bulkier version of today's ubiquitous cell phone). As his name implies, Monk is a scholarly man with little to no interest in women. Soon, however, he is coerced into marrying his wealthy first cousin (don't ask), Mary, as a means of saving his family's debt-ridden estate. Trouble is not long in coming, when Morris saves the life of the eponymous Stella from a shipwreck in the North Sea. As in Haggard's earlier novel "Mr. Meeson's Will" (1888) and the later "Benita" (1906), a shipwreck does play a pivotal role in this story. This shipwreck scene and its aftermath, by the way, constitute the only true action set pieces in the novel. It doesn't take too long for the reader to realize that Morris and Stella are "soul mates," which situation leads to all sorts of Edwardian mishegas, including [WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD!!!] Stella's death. And it is here that the novel reveals its true purpose, that of showing us that there are loves that survive beyond the grave, and that a spiritual connection is so much more important than the physical and temporal. Toss out your Harlequin paperbacks, ladies; this story is a TRUE romance! The theme of "eternal love" was one that Haggard returned to repeatedly, from his very first novel "Dawn" (1884), through all four She novels, and elsewhere. He himself was involved with a "soul mate" who he just happened to NOT be married to, and thus one can understand why "Stella" meant so much to him. This novel is somewhat reminiscent of his "Jess" (1887) and also his "Beatrice" (1890), in that it deals with a married man who finds his perfect match...elsewhere. All three tales end tragically, but in "Stella Fregelius," at least Haggard holds out the hope of a happy ending in the form of a blissful afterlife. The scenes in which the bereaved Morris attempts to communicate with his lost Stella are truly touching, and are written in some of Haggard's most beautiful, lyrical prose. This is also one of the most symbolic and metaphor packed of all Haggard's novels(at least, of the two dozen that I've been fortunate enough to have read), and contains many passages that the reader may want to peruse over and over, or at least underline for future reference.
Filled with warm and touching characters; featuring a few genuinely exciting scenes; and crammed with Haggard's thoughts on life, love, religion and the afterlife, "Stella Fregelius" is a wonderful read. And certainly nothing to apologize for! I hope that Haggard felt, when he reread this finished work, something akin to the sentiment that Stella describes in one scene: "I have done something; it is good; it cannot be changed; it is a stone built forever in the pyramid of beauty, or knowledge, or advancement."
The story here concerns one Morris Monk, a British inventor who is trying, when we first meet him, to perfect a device that he calls an "aerophone" (it seems, from the description, to be a bulkier version of today's ubiquitous cell phone). As his name implies, Monk is a scholarly man with little to no interest in women. Soon, however, he is coerced into marrying his wealthy first cousin (don't ask), Mary, as a means of saving his family's debt-ridden estate. Trouble is not long in coming, when Morris saves the life of the eponymous Stella from a shipwreck in the North Sea. As in Haggard's earlier novel "Mr. Meeson's Will" (1888) and the later "Benita" (1906), a shipwreck does play a pivotal role in this story. This shipwreck scene and its aftermath, by the way, constitute the only true action set pieces in the novel. It doesn't take too long for the reader to realize that Morris and Stella are "soul mates," which situation leads to all sorts of Edwardian mishegas, including [WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD!!!] Stella's death. And it is here that the novel reveals its true purpose, that of showing us that there are loves that survive beyond the grave, and that a spiritual connection is so much more important than the physical and temporal. Toss out your Harlequin paperbacks, ladies; this story is a TRUE romance! The theme of "eternal love" was one that Haggard returned to repeatedly, from his very first novel "Dawn" (1884), through all four She novels, and elsewhere. He himself was involved with a "soul mate" who he just happened to NOT be married to, and thus one can understand why "Stella" meant so much to him. This novel is somewhat reminiscent of his "Jess" (1887) and also his "Beatrice" (1890), in that it deals with a married man who finds his perfect match...elsewhere. All three tales end tragically, but in "Stella Fregelius," at least Haggard holds out the hope of a happy ending in the form of a blissful afterlife. The scenes in which the bereaved Morris attempts to communicate with his lost Stella are truly touching, and are written in some of Haggard's most beautiful, lyrical prose. This is also one of the most symbolic and metaphor packed of all Haggard's novels(at least, of the two dozen that I've been fortunate enough to have read), and contains many passages that the reader may want to peruse over and over, or at least underline for future reference.
Filled with warm and touching characters; featuring a few genuinely exciting scenes; and crammed with Haggard's thoughts on life, love, religion and the afterlife, "Stella Fregelius" is a wonderful read. And certainly nothing to apologize for! I hope that Haggard felt, when he reread this finished work, something akin to the sentiment that Stella describes in one scene: "I have done something; it is good; it cannot be changed; it is a stone built forever in the pyramid of beauty, or knowledge, or advancement."
February 28, 2018
I hovered between three and four stars for this one, but ultimately decided on the lower rating after . Also, the setup establishing the characters of Morris, Mary, the Colonel, and others was overlong and rather boring.
The themes of death and mysticism were very well-done, however, especially with Stella, who was simply too alive to be alive. This actually makes sense within the context of the story, which muses that we must die in order to live. Haggard - a contemporary of Arthur Machen and Robert W. Chambers - almost dips into weird fiction territory here, exploring as he does Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and cosmic realms that drive mortal visionaries to madness. He also modernizes the neo-paganism by making protagonist Morris an inventor whose "aerophone" - a cross between a cell phone and a walkie-talkie - serves as an earthly symbol for communication between two people separated from one another.
Despite the love triangle with Mary, though, I got the impression Morris was actually asexual. He is apparently still a virgin in his thirties and is even confused as to why other men expend so much time and effort pursuing women. (In fact, he's so uninterested in women that he's outright accused of being a misogynist - I had no idea that word even existed 110 years ago!) He only intends to marry Mary out of a sense of familial obligation and childhood fondness, and nor does he have any close male companions. While he certainly admires feminine beauty, it seems to be aesthetic in nature, rather than physical attraction. The narrative at one point plays with the idea that love cannot exist between man and woman without lust, which implies a rare power to Morris and Stella's bond. I don't know if this was just Edwardian prudishness, but I found it interesting nevertheless.
The themes of death and mysticism were very well-done, however, especially with Stella, who was simply too alive to be alive. This actually makes sense within the context of the story, which muses that we must die in order to live. Haggard - a contemporary of Arthur Machen and Robert W. Chambers - almost dips into weird fiction territory here, exploring as he does Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and cosmic realms that drive mortal visionaries to madness. He also modernizes the neo-paganism by making protagonist Morris an inventor whose "aerophone" - a cross between a cell phone and a walkie-talkie - serves as an earthly symbol for communication between two people separated from one another.
Despite the love triangle with Mary, though, I got the impression Morris was actually asexual. He is apparently still a virgin in his thirties and is even confused as to why other men expend so much time and effort pursuing women. (In fact, he's so uninterested in women that he's outright accused of being a misogynist - I had no idea that word even existed 110 years ago!) He only intends to marry Mary out of a sense of familial obligation and childhood fondness, and nor does he have any close male companions. While he certainly admires feminine beauty, it seems to be aesthetic in nature, rather than physical attraction. The narrative at one point plays with the idea that love cannot exist between man and woman without lust, which implies a rare power to Morris and Stella's bond. I don't know if this was just Edwardian prudishness, but I found it interesting nevertheless.
April 24, 2024
This is an odd story even for Haggard. There are hints of the supernatural throughout, and many of the hints never come to fruition. Morris Monk is a gentleman inventor. His obsession is an “aerophone”, the basic premise of which is pretty amazing viewed over a century later. Modern authors would toss around concepts like “quantum entanglement” and “observer effect” for an invention like this. As Schrödinger was only about eleven when Haggard started writing Stella Fregelius, he didn’t have those phrases. But he got the idea anyway.
And then pretty much never uses it. Each aerophone needs a twin. The early aerophone seems to need an attunement with the communicators; it’s a hint that there might be a spiritual dimension to how it works. Stella and Morris even mention, in passing, the possibility of “communication from the dead and with the unseen world at large”. But when Morris actually becomes obsessed with the idea, the aerophone plays no role.
Some of the lines that hint at a deeper theme to the book tend to be voiced in passing as well.
Stella’s father immediately retracts that, and yet, it seems to point to Morris’s later obsession.
Morris’s actual attempts at communication with the other worlds are two-pronged, one merely an excuse for the other. There is the possibility of using some of the techniques that built the aerophone to build a one-way aerophone for listening to communications beyond our own solar system. And then, hidden in a diary, Lovecraft-like (and, of course, this predates Lovecraft), are the secrets to communicating—perhaps, again, only one way, only listening in—with that other other world, the unseen world of the dead.
But this is not a thriller or a horror novel as such, but more of a sort of faerie tale with faerie tale sensitivities. Things happen; choices are made; consequences follow.
The characters are extraordinarily well realized, even for a Haggard novel, and overlaid on top of a faerie tale that makes for an odd effect. The hints of the other world, never seen by us, make it even odder.
And then pretty much never uses it. Each aerophone needs a twin. The early aerophone seems to need an attunement with the communicators; it’s a hint that there might be a spiritual dimension to how it works. Stella and Morris even mention, in passing, the possibility of “communication from the dead and with the unseen world at large”. But when Morris actually becomes obsessed with the idea, the aerophone plays no role.
Some of the lines that hint at a deeper theme to the book tend to be voiced in passing as well.
“You talk like a book—you talk like a book,” muttered the old gentleman. “But I know that the end of it will be wretchedness for everybody. People who go on as you do about instincts, and fine feelings, and all that stuff, are just the ones who get into some dreadful mess at last. I tell you that such ideas are some of the devil’s best baits.”
Stella’s father immediately retracts that, and yet, it seems to point to Morris’s later obsession.
“I detest all this spiritual hocus-pocus to which you have always had a leaning. I fear and hate it instinctively, as some people hate cats, because I know that it breeds mischief, and that, as I said before, people who go on trying to see, do see, or fancy that they do. While we are in the world let the world and its limitations be enough for us. When we go out of the world, then the supernatural may become the natural, and cease to be hurtful and alarming.”
Morris’s actual attempts at communication with the other worlds are two-pronged, one merely an excuse for the other. There is the possibility of using some of the techniques that built the aerophone to build a one-way aerophone for listening to communications beyond our own solar system. And then, hidden in a diary, Lovecraft-like (and, of course, this predates Lovecraft), are the secrets to communicating—perhaps, again, only one way, only listening in—with that other other world, the unseen world of the dead.
But this is not a thriller or a horror novel as such, but more of a sort of faerie tale with faerie tale sensitivities. Things happen; choices are made; consequences follow.
The characters are extraordinarily well realized, even for a Haggard novel, and overlaid on top of a faerie tale that makes for an odd effect. The hints of the other world, never seen by us, make it even odder.
“Life is a queer game of blind man’s bluff, isn’t it; played in a mist on a mountain top, and the players keep dropping over the precipices. But nobody heeds, because there are always plenty more, and the game goes on forever.”
October 4, 2019
Писать и мучиться, чтобы мучиться и писать. Результат этого — данное произведение. Работы начались задолго до публикации. Хаггард писал минимум в течение пяти лет. В результате получился литературный труд, не подлежащий взвешенной и продуманной оценке. Можно пойти дальше, назвав произведение далёким от того, к чему тяготеет читатель, предпочитая знакомиться с творческими изысканиями Райдера. Вместе с тем, читатель привык видеть стремление Хаггарда придерживаться разных жанров, отчасти создавая произведения из жизни англичан, живущих в пределах Англии. Подобные литературные труды обычно и становились уделом интереса населения Туманного Альбиона, тогда как читатель Райдера с других земель предпочитал игнорировать всё, так или иначе лишённое увлекательности.
(c) Trounin
(c) Trounin
November 14, 2017
Written in1904, this is another of Haggard’s eternal love romances: that there are loves that survive beyond the grave, and that a spiritual connection is much more important than the physical and temporal. This romance deals with the overlapping fates, a triangle, of 3 people in a northern coastal region of England: scholarly Morris Monk, inventor; his first cousin, Mary Porson; and the daughter of the new church rector, Stella Fregelius.
Like similar Haggard stories, it is drawn out with moral and philosophical narration with the third person narration. Thus the lower rating.
Like similar Haggard stories, it is drawn out with moral and philosophical narration with the third person narration. Thus the lower rating.
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February 1, 20164 stars from Sandy: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
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