Favorites of 2019: Recordings

The following recordings, all first heard in the past twelve months, got stuck on repeat in my player for weeks at a time. In chronological order by musical era:

CHORAL MUSIC

Manuel Cardoso: Requiem, Lamentations, Magnificat and Motets. Cupertinos, directed by Luís Toscano. Hyperion, recorded 2016.

One of the great benefits of the early music revival has been the rediscovery and performance of unjustly neglected works. Manuel Cardoso was a Portuguese composer of sacred polyphony in the early 17th century who was previously unknown to me. This disc, a Gramophone Award winner this year in the Early Music category, offers a selection of his works: Lamentations for Maundy Thursday, a requiem mass, a Magnificat, and several motets. Cardoso's music occasionally features almost Gesualdo-like dissonance, especially appropriate, perhaps, in music that invites us to contemplate suffering and death. The Portuguese group Cupertinos, also new to me, have a distinctive sound, both ethereal and mournful.

SOLO RECITAL

Alessandro Scarlatti & Giovanni Bononcini: Cantate da camera; Il lamento d'Olimpia. Gloria Banditelli, alto, with Ensemble Aurora conducted by Enrico Gatti. Tactus, recorded 1988.

Alessandro Scarlatti, an Italian composer of the generation before Vivaldi, was a major exponent of the cantata form. He composed more than 600, but it is uncertain whether "Bella madre dei fiori" was actually one of them. What isn't uncertain, though, is the music's high quality. Giovanni Bononcini, ten years younger than Scarlatti, moved to London in 1720 and became a colleague of and rival to Handel. The two Bononcini cantatas on this disc were published in London the year after his arrival, but were probably composed several years earlier. The final section of the second one, "Care luci del mio bene," seems to have inspired Handel's melody for "Myself I shall adore" from Semele two decades later. These elegant miniature dramas of unhappy love are exquisitely sung by Gloria Banditelli, whose voice has a dark, plangent quality. An excerpt from "Bella madre dei fiori" (Fair mother of the flowers):

https://youtu.be/L-SxC7pySis?t=854 [selection ends at 17:13]

Venez chère ombre. Eva Zaïcik, mezzo-soprano, with Le Consort directed by Justin Taylor. Alpha, recorded 2018.

Eva Zaïcik is a graduate of Le Jardin des Voix, the young artist program of Les Arts Florissants—always a strong recommendation. She has a rich mezzo-soprano with, to my ears, an especially attractive lower register; her wide range is shown to great advantage on this recording. She and her collaborators Le Consort, led by Justin Taylor, have made a selection of French Baroque cantates and cantatilles, which Taylor in his booklet-note calls "chamber tragedies." The pieces date from the early 18th century and generally feature mythological heroines; the composers include Lefebvre, de Montéclair, Courbois and Clérambault. Over half of the pieces are claimed to be world premiere recordings, and all of these performances are revelatory. Lefebvre's "Venez chère ombre" (O come, beloved spirit):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcPeSQ70tBo

Handel's Last Prima Donna: Giulia Frasi in London. Ruby Hughes, soprano, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Laurence Cummings. Chandos Chaconne, recorded 2017.

An Italian opera singer who came to London in the early 1740s, Giulia Frasi sang in works by a variety of composers. She is best known, though, for her performances in Handel's oratorios, originating the roles of Solomon's Queen, the Queen of Sheba, and First Harlot in Solomon (1749), the title roles in Susanna (1749) and Theodora (1750), and Iphis in Jephtha (1752). She was part of the company that performed Messiah annually at Foundling Hospital under Handel's direction (or, later, in his presence). Charles Burney wrote of Frasi that she "had a clear and sweet voice, free from defects, and a smooth and chaste style of singing; which though cold and unimpassioned, pleased natural ears. . ." [1] Ruby Hughes does not sound cold or unimpassioned, but it would not be unfair to say that she has a similarly pure delivery. Rather than over-emoting, she allows the expressiveness of the music to shine through in selections from Handel, Handel's assistant John Christopher Smith, Thomas Arne, and a name new to me, Philip Hayes. "Why is death for ever late?" from Arne's Artaxerxes (1762):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIZyxgxd6jU

Fanny Mendelssohn: Lieder. Julianne Baird, soprano, with Keith Weber, fortepiano. Newport Classic, recorded 1998.

Anna Beer's Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music is one of my favorite books of 2019, and it was thanks to Beer's chapter on Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel that I picked up this disc when I spotted it in a record store bargain bin. There are only a handful of recordings solely devoted to Fanny Mendelssohn's songs; this one features adventurous early-music soprano Julianne Baird accompanied on period-appropriate fortepiano by Keith Weber. The notes of the fortepiano have a quicker decay than those of a modern concert piano; the sound is perhaps drier and less lush, and as a result the singer is more exposed. Baird brings purity of tone and simplicity of approach to these surpassingly lovely melodies; her art is to make them sound artless.

Honorable mention

All of the following recordings just missed being included in my favorites; in another year (or on another day) they might have made it. In chronological order by musical era:

Charpentier: Histoires sacrées. Ensemble Correspondances directed by Sébastien Daucé, Harmonia Mundi. A very welcome contribution to the ongoing rediscovery of the music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, this double-CD (plus DVD) set features oratorio-like sacred dialogues.

Anima sacra. Jakub Józef Orliński, countertenor, with Il pomo d'oro directed by Maxim Emelyanychev, Erato. Although Orliński lacks Philippe Jaroussky's sheer beauty of tone and extraordinary musicality, he gets major points for seeking out for his debut recording excellent sacred music by little-known Baroque composers such as Nicola Fago, Domenec Terradellas, Domenico Sarro and Gaetano Maria Schiassi.

Vivaldi: Musica sacra per alto. Delphine Galou, contralto, with Accademia Bizantina directed by Ottavio Dantone, Naïve. For me, the definitive performances of this repertory are by the Italian alto Sara Mingardo, but Galou makes her own distinctive contribution in this wonderful music.

Handel: Italian cantatas. Sabine Devieilhe, soprano, and Léa Desandre, mezzo-soprano, with Le Concert d'Astrée directed by Emmanuelle Haïm, Erato. Two French sopranos, rising stars of Baroque performance, join forces on an album of dramatic cantatas composed by Handel while visiting Italy in his early 20s.

Alma Mahler: Complete Songs. Lilli Paasikivi, mezzo-soprano, with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Jorma Panula, Ondine. Another exploration inspired by Anna Beer's book about women composers, this disc features Finnish mezzo-soprano Lilli Passikivi as the vocal soloist in Panula's lush Strauss-like orchestrations of Alma Mahler's sixteen surviving lieder.

OPERA

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: La Finta Giardiniera (The Pretend Garden Girl, 1775). Soloists with the Concentus Musicus Wien conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Teldec Das Alte Werk, recorded 1991.

I had the unfortunate experience of seeing a 2002 SF Opera Center production of La finta giardiniera misdirected by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, whose contempt for opera, its performers and its audiences was all too clear. For no discernable reason the directors set the opera in a hideous 1960s rec center and required the female singers to spend much of the opera wandering about the stage in their underwear while simulating sexual acts on the (fully clothed) male cast members. The plot didn't help matters: in a fit of jealous rage Count Belfiore has stabbed his fiancée the Marchesa Violante and left her for dead. Unbeknownst to him she has recovered, but fearing renewed assault the Marchesa disguises herself as a servant, "Sandrina," and goes to work as a gardener at the mansion of the town's mayor, the Podestà. A year later the Count is betrothed to the Podestà's niece Arminda and comes to the mansion to receive his blessing for the union. An abduction, a mad scene, lovers getting mixed up in the dark, and a sleep scene follow before Sandrina confesses her true identity and she and the Count are reconciled for a happy (?) ending.

What the appalling production and ludicrous libretto had concealed was that the opera is full of wonderful music. And even the libretto is not quite as absurd as it first appears. In her book Recognition in Mozart's Operas (2006), scholar Jessica Waldoff connects Sandrina's seeking refuge in fainting, madness and sleep with the 18th-century culture of sensibility. In fact, Waldoff shows that La finta giardiniera is one of several loose adaptations of Samuel Richardson's sentimental novel Pamela (1740). Having an opera buffa heroine disguised as a gardener (or another member of the servant class) became a widely adopted device after the success of Carlo Goldoni and Niccolò Piccinni's Pamela opera La buona figliuola (1760).

But most of all, there's the music, written when Mozart was only 19 but already developing the mature artistry that would reach its peak a decade later in his three collaborations with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. While the libretto of this opera (variously ascribed to Ranieri de' Calzabigi or Giuseppe Petrosellini) is nowhere near that quality, Mozart still manages to find every opportunity for brilliant musical realization.

This live recording from 1991 is strongly cast: the women include Edita Gruberova, Charlotte Margiono, Monica Bacelli, and Dawn Upshaw. Harconcourt's conducting drives the comedy forward but gives moments of reflection and pathos their full due. I'm thankful that encountering Waldoff's book this year inspired me to give this work another chance.

Sandrina's "Geme la tortorella" (The cry of the turtledove), sung by Edita Gruberova:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnvQK4n0bBU

Update 2021-10-25: Last week we learned the sad news that Edita Gruberova had died at age 74. After an extraordinarily long and distinguished career, she had given her final staged opera performances in March 2019 as Elisabetta in Donizetti's Roberto Devereaux at the Bayerische Staatsoper. In September 2020, with concert halls and opera houses closed due to the pandemic, Gruberova announced her retirement. Fortunately she has left an extensive recorded legacy, including roles in Mozart (the Queen of Night in The Magic Flute, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Giunia in Lucio Silla, and, of course, Sandrina), Haydn (Gabriel in Die Schöpfung), Offenbach (the four love-objects in The Tales of Hoffmann), and Richard Strauss (Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Hermione in Die Ägyptische Helena).

Honorable mention

Antonio Salieri: La scuola de' gelosi (The school of jealousy). Soloists with L'arte del mondo conducted by Werner Ehrhardt. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, recorded 2016.

Count Bandiera lusts after Ernestina, the wife of the merchant Blasio. The Lieutenant, Blasio's cousin and the count's friend, advises the Countess and Blasio to make their partners jealous in turn. If two couples switching partners under the manipulative guidance of a man who stands outside of their entanglements and wants to teach them a lesson seems familiar, it's the plot of the Mozart-da Ponte opera Cosi fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti (That's how they all are, or The school for lovers). And if the scene of the Count propositioning his own wife in disguise seems familiar, it's also a key scene in the Mozart-da Ponte opera Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). But Salieri's opera was composed in 1778, eight years before Figaro and more than a decade before Cosi. That doesn't make it the superior work of art, but it does make it very much worthy of interest. This is a well-performed live recording; most of the soloists are Italian, and conductor Ehrhardt has an excellent sense of pace and comic momentum. The only reason it did not make my list of favorites is that Salieri and his librettist Caterino Mazzolà are not quite Mozart and da Ponte. Still, I will be returning to this opera with pleasure.

Other favorites of 2019:

• Movies & television
• Live performances
• Books

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1. Quoted in Richard Luckett, Handel's Messiah: A Celebration. Harcourt Brace, 1992, pp. 159-160.

Favorites of 2019: Movies and television

Gate of Hell. Image source: The Criterion Collection

Movies

Since 2019 still has seven weeks to go, you might think it's a bit early to begin posting about my favorites. But my usually deliberate writing pace has slowed even further recently due to a heavy schedule both at and outside of work. So I'm beginning to list my favorites now in the hope of actually finishing before the end of the year.

A heavy work and personal schedule means that my six favorites and three honorable mentions have been drawn from only about 30 films watched this year. And as always my choices are made from films first seen, but not necessarily first released, in the past twelve months or so.

Narrative film

As Hollywood films get more and more franchise- and merchandise-driven we seem to have become part of an audience that studios are increasingly uninterested in appealing to. So in 2019 we found the greatest pleasure in movies produced outside the United States. In the order viewed:

Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku, 2018), written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda.

Image source: Asia Pacific Screen Awards: Best Screenplay, 2018

What at first seems like it may be a warm story about a plucky intentional family getting by on the margins through love and solidarity gradually grows more complicated, and more grim. The man, Osamu (Lily Franky), has been laid off after an injury, and supports the family by shoplifting with the boy, Shota (Kairi Jō)—who, it turns out, is not the biological child of Osamu and his wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando). Neither is the young woman, Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), who does thinly disguised sex work as a bar hostess; she is instead related to the old woman whose house they all live in, Hatsue (Kirin Kiki).

Image source: Asia Pacific Screen Awards: Best Screenplay, 2018

The family expands when Osamu and Shota bring home a young girl, Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) who is neglected and abused by her parents; is it a rescue, or a kidnapping? And when Osamu and Shota train Yuri as a shoplifting accomplice, is that another form of abuse? Finally, we learn of the dark secret that binds Osamu and Nobuyo, and which again blurs the line between rescue and crime. Ultimately, we discover that in a corrupt, violent and unjust world no one's motives or actions can be unmixed. It is an insight of Brechtian bleakness, but lacking any of Brecht's hope for the transformation of the brutally mercenary society in which we all find ourselves.

Gate of Hell (Jigokumon, 1953), written and directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa.

Image source: The Criterion Collection

Gate of Hell has the stark simplicity of a Kabuki tragedy; only afterwards do you realize that it can be read as a postwar parable about rapacious militaristic values and their disastrous consequences. After catching a glimpse of the exquisite Lady Kesa (Machiko Kyō), the samurai Morito Endo (Kazuo Hasegawa) burns with unquenchable desire. She is married to court official Wataru Watanabe (Isao Yamagata), but Morito plans to sneak into his bedroom one night and murder him as he sleeps. Lady Kesa apparently acquiesces, but she has a plan of her own to thwart dishonor. . .

Image source: The Criterion Collection

I have long associated the Japanese cinema of the 1950s with the black & white masterpieces of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi and Ozu. One surprise of Gate of Hell is that it features gorgeous color cinematography (it was among the earliest color films by a Japanese director). It's a visual feast: the costumes are sumptuous, and many shots are framed to look like living Ukiyo-e prints (a connection made explicit at the opening of the film). The performances are powerful, the story compelling and multi-layered.

War and Peace (Voyna i mir, 1967), written by Vasily Solovyov and Sergei Bondarchuk based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy; directed by Bondarchuk.

Image source: The Criterion Collection

Speaking of visual feasts, clearly no expense was spared in filming this adaptation of Tolstoy's great novel. The ball scene has hundreds, and the battle scenes thousands, of costumed extras. Bondarchuk offers both vast spectacle and intimate scenes where fates turn on a single remark or glance.

Across the four separate films that make up War and Peace we follow the intertwined fates of three main characters (and two dozen or so minor ones): the upright-to-a-fault Prince Andrei Bolkonsky; his friend Pierre Bezukhov, whose sudden elevation to wealth and high social status does not bring happiness; and Natasha Rostova, the young woman they both come to love. Their private dramas of sacrifice, betrayal, and reconciliation are set against the public calamities of Napoleon's campaigns, with the last two films featuring the invasion of Russia in 1812, the capture and burning of Moscow, and the grueling retreat of the French Army at the start of the bitter Russian winter.

The justly celebrated battle scenes are mind-boggling in scale, and vividly depict the chaos and brutality of Napoleonic warfare. As you watch the trailer, remind yourself that this is not CGI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DqanxfecIA

The most arresting performance among an excellent cast is that of Ludmila Savelyeva as Natasha Rostova. A 19-year-old dancer when she was cast, Savelyeva is radiant as the excited 14-year-old attending her first ball, and over the 7-year course of the story convincingly becomes a sadder, wiser, and more self-aware woman. Bondarchuk himself played Pierre, who is prey to enthusiasms and impulses but who, despite his nearly fatal misadventures, manages to retain a fundamental decency. Vyacheslav Tikhonov was reportedly Bondarchuk's third choice to play Prince Andrei, but he acquits himself nobly.

Prince Andrei (Vyacheslav Tikhonov) and Nastasha Rostova (Ludmila Savelyeva). Image source: The Criterion Collection

It helps to have some familiarity with the novel. Scenes sometimes begin in progress, and the characters aren't always explicitly identified. (I had a hard time telling the roistering soldiers Dolokov (Oleg Yefremov) and Kuragin (Vasily Lanovoy) apart.) And Bondarchuk is a little too fond of "artistic" directorial effects. But these are minor flaws in what is an unforgettable experience. We watched the 403-minute Russian Cinema Council edition of the film released on DVD in 2003; the Criterion Collection has recently issued a 422-minute restoration which is now the definitive version. With this film, more is definitely better.

Honorable mentions, romantic comedy division:

Crazy Rich Asians (2018), written by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim based on the novel by Kevin Kwan, directed by Jon M. Chu

Eleanor Young (the great Michelle Yeoh), Nick Young (Henry Golding), and Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) in Crazy Rich Asians. Image source: Juice Online

Isn't It Romantic (2019), written by Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman, directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson

Josh (Adam Devine), Natalie (Rebel Wilson), and Isabella (Priyanka Chopra) in Isn't It Romantic. Image source:  Brightest Young Things

Harrowing masterpieces of world cinema aren't the only movies we watch and enjoy; both of these romantic comedies also hit our sweet spot. Crazy Rich Asians was criticized by some on its release as offering a fantasy image of Asian and Asian-American life. To which we respond, it's a romantic comedy, a genre not known for rubbing viewer's faces in gritty realism. Isn't It Romantic cleverly sidesteps the fantasy/reality issue by making most of the film the heroine's dream, and affectionately sending up many rom-com conventions—including the girl who realizes too late that her best friend is her perfect match (see Emma). Crazy Rich Asians embraces those conventions—the girl from a middle-class family rejected by her boyfriend's super-wealthy relatives (see Pride and Prejudice)—in a satisfying way. Both are worth your time if you're a rom-com fan; if you're not, you're sentenced to watch It Happened One Night this weekend.

Honorable mention, classic Bollywood division

Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), screenplay by Prayag Raj, scenario by K. K. Shukla, dialogues by Kader Khan, directed by Manmohan Desai

Amar (Vinod Khanna), Akbar (Rishi Kapoor), and Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) in disguise. Image source: indianexpress.com

Regular readers of this blog are probably aware that I am not the world's biggest fan of masala, but Amar Akbar Anthony has snuck at least partly under my defenses. After taking the fall for his boss and serving prison time for an accidental death he didn't cause, the poor but honest Kishanlal (Pran) returns home to find his family starving and his wife (Nirupa Roy) dying of tuberculosis. He confronts his gangster boss Robert (Jeevan) for neglecting them in his absence, and after much dishoom-dishoom and a car chase is apparently killed.

Miraculously (a word that has to be used often in summaries of masala plots) Kishanlal survives, and carries off a crate of his boss's gold—a good trick, as a crate of gold that size would weigh more than a ton. But Kishanlal discovers that his wife has gone to commit suicide (thanks to a providential bolt of lightning, she's blinded instead). He takes his three little boys to a park and tells them to wait for him (at the foot of a Gandhi statue, on August 15), but when he returns after his escape from Robert's henchmen they have disappeared. Inadvertently separated and apparently abandoned, they have been taken in by a Catholic priest, a Hindu police officer, and a Muslim tailor (who also finds Ma and brings her home to unknowingly raise her own son). Kishanlal, bereft, vows revenge; he will use his newfound wealth to supplant and humiliate Robert.

Jump cut to 25 years later: Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) is a two-fisted, good-hearted bhai who rules his lane, Amar (Vinod Khanna) has become a tough but honest cop, and Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) has become a famous qawwali singer. When a blind old woman (guess who—wait, wasn't she dying of tuberculosis 25 years ago?) is hit by a car and needs an emergency transfusion, all three men (who, of course, all share her blood type) volunteer. As the blood of the three strangers who are her unsuspecting Hindu, Muslim and Christian sons mingles in Ma's veins to give her life—symbolism, anyone?—the credits begin to roll. The opening credits; this is just the pre-credit sequence.

Will the family finally recognize one another and be reunited? Will Ma regain her sight and Kishanlal his moral center? Will each of the men find true love (the heroines include Neetu Singh, Parveen Babi and a young Shabana Azmi)? And will they ultimately unite to vanquish the bad guys? Is this a Manmohan Desai movie?

For a typically thoughtful review of the film, please see Philip Lutgendorf's Notes on Indian popular cinema.

Documentary

After I put together this list of favorite documentaries, I realized that all the films on it are about women over 60. That says something noteworthy about this cultural moment.

Joan Jett: Bad Reputation (2018), directed by Kevin Kerslake.

Image source: billboard.com

As a teenager in 1975 Joan Jett founded the Runaways. After the acrimonious split of the band four years later she started over from scratch, recruiting a backup band from musicians in the LA and SF punk scenes (including the drummer from the Avengers). She dubbed them the Blackhearts, and they toured nonstop, selling Jett's self-recorded and -pressed album from the trunk of her manager Kenny Laguna's car. Jett and the Blackhearts went into the studio in 1981 to record another album, their first as a group; the title track was a gender-reversed cover of the glam rock band the Arrows' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQh6heYYOU0

From that same album Joan Jett and the Blackhearts would have a second huge hit with another cover song: Tommy James and the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover." But this time Jett didn't reverse the genders. Some complain that Jett has never made a public statement about her sexuality (as if that's anyone's business but her own). Of course she hasn't—except for the most public statement she could possibly make. Here is a live performance from the mid-1990s:

https://youtu.be/-KU7MuONSd0

"Now I don't hardly know her / But I think I can love her / Crimson and clover / When she comes walking over / I've been waiting to show her / Crimson and clover / Over and over / My, my, such a sweet thing / I want to do ever-y-thing / What a beautiful feeling."

Jett is still passionate about performing live; she plays dozens of gigs a year with the Blackhearts (we just missed a chance to see her in July). This documentary features interviews with Jett, her friends and admirers, combined with footage spanning her career—and of course it's filled with her music. Jett seems like someone it would be great to sit down with over beers while she puts another dime in the jukebox, and the movie captures her onstage energy, her fierce integrity, and her delightfully raspy speaking and singing voice. A must for fans; if you aren't one, watch this movie and you will be.

RBG (2018), directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Photographer: Steve Petteway. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Only the second woman appointed to the Supreme Court (after Sandra Day O'Connor), and the first Jewish woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg broke barriers throughout her career. In 1956 she was one of only nine women in the entering class at Harvard Law, which included more than 500 men. After transferring to Columbia Law and graduating first in her class,  she was rejected from every law firm and clerkship she applied to until some major arm-twisting on the part of one of her law professors. When she joined the faculty of Rutgers Law School in 1963 she was only the 19th woman ever appointed to a tenure-track or tenured law professorship in the United States; when she moved to Columbia Law School in 1972 she became its first tenured female faculty member. [1]

In the early 1970s Ginsburg co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which litigated hundreds of cases of discrimination based on gender. She argued six cases before the Supreme Court, and won five. After serving as a judge for the US District Court of Appeals for more than a decade she was nominated for the Supreme Court in 1993 by Bill Clinton, and was confirmed by a highly partisan Senate 96-3.

The film not only documents Ginsburg's pioneering work for equality under the law. It also succeeds in showing the personal side of this reserved and private person, including the love of opera she shared with the late Antonin Scalia (we see footage from an appearance she made in the speaking role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp in a production of The Daughter of the Regiment at Washington National Opera in 2016). The movie and its subject are delightful; let's fervently hope that Ginsburg chooses not to retire anytime soon.

Tea with the Dames (2018)

The Dames Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Eileen Atkins and Judi Dench. Image: NY Times

Four of the greatest actresses of their generation, all Dames Commander—Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Eileen Atkins—sit down over tea (and as the sun sets, something a bit stronger) and reminisce about their lives and roles. What more do you need to know?

Television

Slings & Arrows (2003-2006), created by Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, and Mark McKinney

Oliver (Stephen Ouimette) offers some unwanted advice to Geoffrey (Paul Gross). Image source: NY Times

Ordinarily my favorites list is limited to movies and TV shows first experienced in the previous 12 months, but this is actually a rewatch. We first saw Slings & Arrows back in 2008 at the suggestion of some dear friends who thought we would love it. They were absolutely right, but at the time I wasn't posting favorites lists. Inspired by coming across the DVD at a thrift store this summer we watched it again, and found it to be just as brilliant and funny the second time.

Set at the New Burbage Shakespeare Festival, Slings & Arrows follows the fortunes of a theater company that bears a striking (but surely coincidental!) resemblance to the Stratford Festival in Ontario. (Richard Burbage was Shakespeare's leading man in the Lord Chamberlain's (later King's) Men, originating the roles of Hamlet, King Lear, and Richard III, among others.)

Geoffrey Tenant (Paul Gross), a former star actor at the festival, is brought in to rescue the festival's season as artistic director after the accidental death of the previous incumbent Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette). The festival was the scene of Geoffrey's greatest triumphs and worst failure: he is haunted by the memories of his onstage breakdown during a performance of Hamlet. He's also haunted by Oliver, whose restless spirit can't quite let go; his kibitzing ghost offers sardonic running commentary to Geoffrey, who is of course the only person who can see or hear him (shades of Banquo's ghost). Complicating matters is the presence of Geoffrey's old flame Ellen Fanshaw (Martha Burns), whose betrayal of him with otherwise strictly gay Oliver triggered Geoffrey's breakdown. Geoffrey must do battle with the forces of mediocrity and commercialization represented by the shallow, trend-driven director Darren Nichols (Don McKellar) and the festival's business manager, Richard Smith-Jones (Mark McKinney), whose bland conventionality is doubly signaled by his hyphenated name. (It's really, of course, Richard's capable, overworked and underappreciated assistant Anna Conroy (Susan Coyne) who keeps the festival going.)

Slings & Arrows is brilliantly conceived. Each season centers on the production of a single Shakespeare play: Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. But the other productions of the festival and the barely controlled backstage chaos provide an authentic backdrop for the mainstage drama. And sometimes the backdrop becomes the foreground: in Season 3 a Rent-like musical being workshopped at the festival becomes hugely popular and threatens to crowd out the problem-filled production of Lear.

For anyone who has ever been part of putting on a show either onstage or backstage, Slings & Arrows can be painfully funny. The writers obviously have experience of theaters large and small—scene after carefully-observed scene rings true. But the series is so well-written, -structured and -acted that even those who have only ever been in the front of the house should find it compelling. Highly recommended.

Other favorites of 2019:

• Recordings
• Live performances
• Books

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1. Herma Hill Kay, "Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor of Law," Columbia Law Review, v. 104(2), 2004, pp. 2-20. http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=facpubs

Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 7: The last painful moment

Title page of Sir Charles Grandison, Vol. VII and Last. Image source: abebooks.com

In Volume 7, several subplots (finally) wind down: Emily Jervois's crush on Sir Charles, Lady G.'s marital discord, Lady Clementina's familial discord, and Sir Hargrave Pollexfen's rake's progress.

Emily's confession: "Hide me from myself"

Let us sit down on this sofa, if you will not return to my closet.
Illustration drawn and engraved by R. Vinkeles. Image source: Internet Archive

After the marriage of Harriet and Sir Charles, his beautiful 15-year-old ward Emily Jervois comes to live with the couple (as she pleaded to be allowed to do; see Volume 3: The mystery revealed and Volume 6: 18th-century Instagram culture). Emily, of course, is madly in love with Sir Charles. Both Sir Charles and Harriet have long been aware of Emily's feelings, but it occurs to none of the three people involved that this arrangement—whatever the outcome—can only end in tears.

Emily, though, quickly realizes that daily being forced to witness the couple's newlywed bliss is making her miserable. She comes to Harriet's door and makes her confession:

She threw her arms about me, and her tears ran over. This goodness kills me!—I am, I am, a most unhappy creature!—Unhappy from the grant of my own wishes!. . .O Lady Grandison! the deserving wife of the best of men, you ought to hate me!. . .You, madam, whom I best love of all women; but who ought to hate, to despise me!

Trust me, Love, with your secret. It shall never without your Leave pass this faithful bosom, if it be a secret that already I do not guess at.

She started—Guess at, madam!. . .O you cannot, cannot guess at it. If you did—

What if I did?

Then would you banish from your presence for ever the justly-hated Emily: then would you make my guardian renounce me!

Shall I, my dear, tell you what I guess?

Whisper me then, throwing about me the hand I held not: But whisper me that I may not hear.

You love your guardian, my Emily!—He loves you!

O madam!

He will always love you; so will I.

Banish the criminal from your presence for ever; rising, yet again laying her face on my shoulder—and clasping her arms about me, Hide me, hide me from myself.

No need, my dear. Every-body loves your guardian. You cannot love him but with innocence. Your Love is founded in gratitude. So was mine. Don’t I know how to allow for my Emily?. . .Depend upon my kindest allowances. I knew, before you knew it yourself, that you loved your guardian.

I knew I only wanted my guardian to love me, and to be allowed to love him. But what! thought I, at last, can I allow myself in loving a married man, the husband of my friend?

Emily admits to feelings of jealousy and envy, and the likelihood that she would "in time endeavour to supplant her friend; tho' at present she might shudder at the thought." There is only one way to overcome these dark feelings: to live where she will rarely see Sir Charles.

. . .O madam, I ought to fly; I am resolved, whatever it cost me, to fly. . .Advise me something—I see the folly of my wishing to live with you and my guardian.

And is it necessary, my dear, to a conquest of yourself, that we should not live together?

Absolutely so: I am convinced of it.

. . .I wept over her from joy, pity, tenderness. [1]

Emily is experiencing glückschmerz, the opposite of schadenfreude. If schadenfreude is our secret happiness at someone else's misfortune, glückschmerz is our secret heartache at someone else's joy. It is made more acute when the other person's good fortune is something the sufferer has also longed for. Emily goes to nurse her hopeless crush in Northamptonshire with Harriet's Grandmother Shirley. Poor Emily!

Lady Clementina comes to England: "Persuasion, cruel persuasion"

Taking the trembling hand; Welcome, thrice welcome to England, dearest Lady Clementina!
Illustration engraved by Angus from a drawing by Stothard. Image source: Internet Archive

Evidently Emily is not the only woman who wants to wallow masochistically in glückschmerz. After her family pressures her to marry the Count of Belvedere, Lady Clementina contrives to flee Italy and come to England to seek the protection of Sir Charles. As she exclaims, "I have been oppressed! Oppressed by persuasion! By a kneeling father! By a weeping mother! By entreating brothers! And this is but persuasion! Cruel persuasion!" Harriet feels that, for someone of Lady Clementina's acute sensibility, "Persuasion is compulsion." [2]

Six decades later Jane Austen, of course, would write a novel entitled Persuasion, in which Anne Elliot finds that she cannot resist the urgent entreaties of her surrogate mother, Lady Russell. But Austen brilliantly inverts the situation: Anne is persuaded, not to marry against her inclinations a man whom everyone approves, but to break off an engagement with a man she loves wholeheartedly but who is deemed unsuitable. A reader has to wonder whether Austen drew from Sir Charles Grandison in conceiving her masterpiece. If she did, she felt an artist's freedom to alter her model to fit her own purposes.

Lady G.: "I will be all the mother"

Wretch! screamed I—Begone—begone! Whence the boldness of this intrusion?
Illustration engraved by Cook from a drawing by Stothard (1783). Image source: Internet Archive

Richardson had some remarkable attitudes for a middle-class man of his era. At the time, working-class women were routinely hired as wet-nurses for the newborn children of the gentry and nobility. Breastfeeding was considered to be disfiguring, it confined the new mother to the home, and it was viewed as an unrefined, almost animal activity. Yet Sir Charles Grandison contains a scene in which Lord G. discovers his wife breastfeeding their new daughter (named Harriet), and expresses a delighted approval that must have been shared by the author:

[Yesterday] he entered my chamber; and surprised me, as I did him (for I intended that he should know nothing of the matter, nor that I would ever be so condescending); surprised me, as how? Ah, Harriet! in an act that confessed the mother, the whole mother!—Little Harriet at my breast; or, at my neck, I believe I should say—should I not?

The nurse, the nursery-maids, knowing that I would not for the world have been so caught by my nimble lord (who is in twenty places in a minute) were more affrighted than Diana’s nymphs, when the goddess was surprised by Acteon; and each, instead of surrounding me in order to hide my blushes, was for running a different way; not so much as attempting to relieve me from the Brat.

I was ready to let the little Leech drop from my arms—O wretch! screamed I—Begone!—begone! Whence the boldness of this intrusion?

Never was man in a greater rapture. . .He threw himself at my feet, clasping me and the little varlet together in his arms. Brute! said I, will you smother my Harriet—I was half-ashamed of my tenderness—Dear-est, dear-est, dear-est Lady G.—shaking his head, between every dear and est, every muscle of his face working; how you transport me! Never, never, never, saw I so delightful a sight! Let me, let me, let me (every emphatic word repeated three times at least) behold again the dear sight. Let me see you clasp the precious gift, our Harriet’s Harriet too! to that lovely bosom—The wretch (trembling however) pulled aside my handkerchief. I try'd to scold; but was forced to press the little thing to me, to supply the place of the handkerchief—Do you think, I could not have killed him?—To be sure, I was not half angry enough. I knew not what I did, you may well think—for I bowed my face on the smiling infant, who crowed to the pressure of my lips.

Begone, Lord G. said I—See! see! how shall I hold the little Marmouset, if you devour first one of my hands, then the other?

He arose, took the little thing from me, kissed its forehead, its cheeks, its lips, its little pudsey hands, first one, then the other; gave it again to my arms; took it again; and again resigned it to me.

Take away the pug, said I, to the attendants—Take it away, while any of it is left—They rescued the still smiling babe, and ran away with it.

This tender scene brings about a reconciliation between the husband and wife—on the basis of her embrace of motherhood and domesticity:

My lord then again threw himself at my feet—Pardon, pardon me, dearest creature, said he, that I took amiss any thing you ever said or did—You that could make me such rich amends—O let not those charming, charming spirits ever subside, which for so many days together, I missed. . .O my Charlotte! Never, never more shall it be in your power to make me so far forget myself, as to be angry!

My dear Lord G.!—I had like to have said—I believe I did say—Then will you ruin, absolutely ruin, me! What shall I do—for my Roguery?

Never, never part with what you call so!—

Impossible, my lord, to retain it, if it lose its wonted power over you. I shall have a new lesson to learn. . .The infant is the cement between us; and we will for the future be every day more worthy of that, and of each other.

My lord hurried from me in speechless rapture; His handkerchief at his eyes—Nurse, said I, bring me again our precious charge. I will be all the mother. I clasped it to my bosom. What shall I do, my little Harriet! Thy father, sweet one! has run away with my Roguery— [3]

Richardson's evident approval of mothers breastfeeding their children is embedded in an ideology of female nurturance and wifely submission.

Portrait of a family by Johann Friedrich August Tischbein, ca. 1795-1800. Image source: Reading Treasure

This is not the only instance in Sir Charles Grandison where progressive attitudes are expressed only to be immediately undercut. At the end of Volume 6, when Harriet Byron's friends and relatives gather for breakfast the morning after the wedding night, a semi-facetious debate on the relative capacities of men and women takes place. Sentiments are uttered that would not be out of place in an Austen novel:

But pray, Sir Charles. . .let me ask your opinion: Do you think, that if women had the same opportunities, the same education, as men, they would not equal them in their attainments?

He does not, alas, but that the possibility is raised is noteworthy. And Harriet's Grandmother Shirley goes to the heart of the matter:

'I think,' said the venerable lady, 'women are generally too much considered as a species apart. . .Why must women always be addressed in an appropriated language; and not treated on the common footing of reasonable creatures?' [4]

This question seems to have struck Jane Austen with particular force. In Pride and Prejudice, when Elizabeth Bennet refuses Mr. Collins, she says,

'I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart.' [5]

And in Persuasion, Mrs. Croft upbraids her brother Captain Wentworth for not liking to have women on board a ship under his command:

'But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.' [6]

Austen was frequently ahead of her time; Richardson was more often firmly embedded in his.

Lady Clementina and the articles

Sweet sisters! Lovely friends! said he, when come up to us, taking a hand of each, and joining them, bowing on both.
Illustration drawn and engraved by R. Vinkeles. Image source: Internet Archive

Lady Clementina is followed to England by her parents, siblings, and her hopeful admirer the Count of Belvedere. Sir Charles finds himself in the awkward position of sheltering Lady Clementina and acting as mediator between her and her family. Fortunately for his domestic harmony, Harriet is willing to do the emotional work of welcoming her former rival into her household and embracing her as a sister.

Sir Charles draws up a set of articles that he asks Lady Clementina and her family to sign. She is asked to give up her wish of entering a convent, and while her family must agree"that they will never with earnestness endeavour to persuade, much less to compel, Lady Clementina to marry any man whatever." "These terms conceded to, on all sides," the articles conclude, "it is humbly proposed. . .that all acts of disobligation shall be buried in everlasting oblivion." [7]

The convenant sealed, Lady Clementina, the della Porrettas and the Count of Belvedere sail back to Italy without Signor Jeronymo (who will visit Bath for the healing waters); Sir Charles and Harriet promise to visit them in Bologna soon. The Lady Clementina subplot ends with the Count hoping that, in time, Lady Clementina's feelings for Sir Charles will fade, and that, like Harriet, he will find himself grateful and happy in a second-place love.

The death of Sir Hargrave: "The last painful moment"

Harriet's final letters concern the miserable end of Sir Hargrave. He had been suffering ever since "a vile attempt on a lady’s honour" in France had left him badly bruised and bloody at the hands of her husband and brothers. He is left an invalid, and "is thought not to be out of danger from some inward hurt, which often makes him bring up blood in quantities." [8]

He finally realizes that he is dying, and asks to see Sir Charles.

He wrung his hands; wept; lamented his past free life. Fain, said he, would I have been trusted with a few years trial of my penitence. . .—O Sir Charles Grandison! It is a hard, hard thing to die! In the prime of youth too!—Such noble possessions!—

And then he warned his surrounding friends, and made comparisons between Sir Charles’s happiness, and his own misery. Sir Charles, at his request, sat up with him all night: he endeavoured to administer comfort to him; and called out for mercy for him, when the poor man could only, by expressive looks, join in the solemn invocation. Sir Hargrave had begged he would close his eyes. He did. He staid to the last painful moment. . .Poor Sir Hargrave Pollexfen! May he have met with mercy from the All-merciful! [9]

It is the end of Sir Hargrave, and, finally (after a last effusion of Harriet's about the matchless goodness of Sir Charles) of the novel.

The end of the journey: "Too near the faultless character"

I embarked on this journey through one of the longest novels in English because Jane Austen admired it so much. And it's clear why: Richardson portrayed the dilemmas of his heroines with an emotional vividness that elicits a deeply sympathetic response in the reader.

But it is also clear that Richardson, as he himself admitted, "hardly knew what he would write from one letter to the next." [10] The endless reviving of seemingly exhausted subplots and the repetitive scenes of Sir Charles demonstrating his peerless virtue ultimately are wearing to the patience of even the best-intentioned reader. In the "Concluding NOTE by the EDITOR" Richardson, in a rare moment of self-awareness, writes of his hero that "it has been observed by some, that, in general, he approaches too near the faultless character which critics censure as above nature." The flaw of Sir Charles Grandison is that he is virtually flawless.

This was a mistake that Austen never made. We return to the observation by Walter Scott, quoted at the outset of this series, that Austen's novels

proclaim a knowledge of the human heart. . .presenting to the reader, instead of the splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking representation of that which is daily taking place around him. . .The narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as may have fallen under the observation of most folks; and her dramatis personæ conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the readers may recognize as ruling their own and that of most of their acquaintances. . .All of [her characters'] entanglements bring on only a train of mistakes and embarrassing situations. . .in which the author displays her peculiar powers of humor and knowledge of human life. [11]

This is why, despite the profound changes in tastes and mores over the past two centuries, Austen can still be read with the greatest pleasure today. And why Sir Charles Grandison, despite a number of highly effective scenes and the intimate glimpses they offer into the thoughts and emotions of the female characters, requires an increasing effort of will for a modern reader as page follows page follows page and volume slowly succeeds volume. Many thanks to my readers for making that effort with me.

Other posts in this series:

• Volume 1: The abduction
• Volume 2: The confession
• Volume 3: The mystery revealed
• Volume 4: The return to Italy
• Volume 5: Italy vs. England
• Volume 6: 18th-century Instagram culture

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1. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VII, Letter XV. Lady GRANDISON[, To Mrs. Shirley]. In Continuation.
2. Lady Clementina: Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VII, Letter XVII. Signor Jeronymo della PORRETTA, To Sir CHARLES GRANDISON.
   Harriet: Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VII, Letter XXX. Lady GRANDISON[, To Mrs. SHIRLEY]. In Continuation.
3. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VII, Letter XLIII. Lady G. To Lady GRANDISON. 
4. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter LV. Lady G. [To Lady L.] In Continuation. 
5. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter XIX. 
6. Jane Austen, Persuasion, Volume I, Chapter VIII.
7. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VII, Letter XXXVI. Lady GRANDISON[, To Mrs. SHIRLEY]. In Continuation.
8. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume IV, Letter XXXVIII. Lady G. to Miss BYRON.
9. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VII, Letter LXI. Lady GRANDISON, To Mrs. SHIRLEY.
10. Janet Todd, Sensibility: An Introduction. Methuen, 1986. p. 87.
11. [Walter Scott] "Art. IX. Emma, A Novel" [review]. The Quarterly Review, Vol. XIV, No. XXVII, October, 1815, p. 188-201. http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/review-of-emma-in-the-quarterly-review-1815

Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 6: 18th-century Instagram culture

Image: Google Books

At the end of Volume 5 Sir Charles, having been refused a second time by Lady Clementina, returns from Italy to England. Now there is seemingly no barrier to his marriage to Harriet Byron.

This is a situation that Jane Austen would have wrapped up in a couple of chapters—and did. In Sense and Sensibility's Volume III, Chapter XII, Edward Ferrars informs the Dashwoods that his fiancée Lucy Steele, now Mrs. Ferrars, has married his brother Robert; the novel concludes, with Elinor married to Edward and Marianne married to Colonel Brandon, two (short) chapters later. Austen was wise enough to know when her story was finished.

Elinor Dashwood (Emma Thompson) and Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant) emerging from church as a married couple shortly after she has learned that he is free from his engagement with Lucy Steele. Image from Sense and Sensibility (1995).

So who can be in doubt of what will follow Sir Charles's return from Italy to the woman who loves him, and whom he loves? But Sir Charles Grandison will continue for two more volumes. Henry Austen's description of Richardson's "prolix style and tedious narrative" in the "Biographical Notice of the Author" published with Northanger Abbey and Persuasion seems ever more true as the novel approaches the long-delayed marriage of Sir Charles and Harriet. (It should be pointed out that Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are each only two volumes long from beginning to end.)

Sir Charles: The "womanly man"

Beyond Richardson's inability to recognize when his novel was over, another reason Sir Charles Grandison can begin to feel endless at this point is the character of its hero. Sir Charles is, in the words of Terry Eagleton, "a womanly man, for whom power and tenderness are fully compatible." [1] Richardson wanted to Sir Charles to be "an anti-Tom Jones," and created a character who combined feminine virtues—religiosity, sympathy, modesty, sobriety and chastity—with male freedom, wealth and social power. [2]

But as Eagleton further notes, "it is clear enough to us that he can exercise such virtues precisely because he has power." [3] This is one reason Sir Charles Grandison lacks narrative suspense, at least with respect to the hero: for him there is very little at stake. Richardson had intended to show how the feminine virtues, particularly chastity, are equally important for men (all the rakes in the novel either reform, come to bad ends, or both). But "the blunt truth is that in patriarchal society it does not matter whether men are chaste or not. Grandison's virginity has no price, no exchange value" in the marriage market—unlike the chastity of women, who are rendered unfit for marriage once they have "fallen," even if they are victims of rape. [4]

Because his hero is so unrelentingly good and is in such an unassailable social position, Richardson had to struggle to generate conflict and drama. Tom Jones gets into one picaresque scrape after another after his fall from Squire Allworthy's favor; Sir Charles, as Janet Todd observes, "has very little to do but extricate himself with honour from one lady, the foreign Clementina, and bestow himself on another, the English Harriet." [5] It is the question of Harriet's fate that generates what little suspense there is in the later volumes; the reader is to be forgiven if Sir Charles's vacillation between two beautiful, deserving women is not a compelling dilemma.

"A second-place Love"

Early in Volume 6, in a letter to her cousin Mrs. Reeves, Harriet squarely faces her situation:

But were he to declare himself my Lover, my heart would not be so joyful as you seem to expect, if Lady Clementina is to be unhappy. What tho' the refusal of marriage was hers; was not that refusal the greatest sacrifice that ever woman made to her superior duty? Does she not still avow her Love to him? And must he not, ought he not, ever to love her? And here my pride puts in its claim to attention—Shall your Harriet sit down and think herself happy in a second-place Love?

Lest Mrs. Reeves or the reader remain in any uncertainty, Harriet immediately answers her own question:

Yet let me own to you, my cousin, that Sir Charles Grandison is dearer to me than all else that I hold most dear in this world:. . .and [if] he were to declare himself my Lover; Affectation, be gone! I would say; I will trust to my own heart, and to my future conduct, to make for myself an interest in his affections. . . [6]

Harriet's point of "female delicacy" answered to her satisfaction, her Uncle Selby wants to move things along: "I am for sending up for Sir Charles directly. Let him come the first day of next week, and let them be married before the end of it." [7] The reader may assent wholeheartedly.

But there remains the remarkable scene of Sir Charles's proposal to Harriet.

The offer: 18th-century Instagram culture

"Again he kissed my hand, rising with dignity. I could have received his vows on my knees; but I was motionless."

Illustration engraved by Angus from a drawing by Stothard (1783). Image: Internet Archive.

Epistolary novels provide readers with a sense of immediacy, particularly when the correspondents are reporting their reactions in the midst of the situations they're describing. As Sir Charles's sister Charlotte tells her, "I love, Harriet, to write to the moment. . .No pathetic without it!" [8]

In that same letter, right after expressing a fear that Lady Clementina will have second thoughts about renouncing Sir Charles, Charlotte records a conversation with her sister Lady L. as it is happening. An excerpt will give the flavor:

Your servant, Lady L.

And your servant, Lady G.—Writing? To whom?

To our Harriet—

I will read your letter—Shall I?

Take it; but read it out, that I may know what I have written.

Now give it me again. I’ll write down what you say to it, Lady L.

Lady L. I say you are a whimsical creature. But I don’t like what you have last written.

Charlotte. Last written—’Tis down.—But why so, Lady L.?

Lady L. How can you thus teaze our beloved Byron, with your conjectural evils?

Ch. Have I supposed an impossibility?—But 'tis down—Conjectural evils.

Lady L. If you are so whimsical, write—'My dear Miss Byron—'

Ch. My dear Miss Byron—'Tis down.

Lady L. (Looking over me) 'Do not let what this strange Charlotte has written, grieve you:—'

Ch. Very well, Caroline!—grieve you.—

Lady L. 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.'

Ch. Well observed.—Words of Scripture, I believe.—Well—evil thereof.—

Lady L. Never, surely, was there such a creature as you, Charlotte—

Ch. That’s down, too.—

Lady L. Is that down? laughing—That should not have been down—Yet 'tis true.

Ch. Yet 'tis true—What’s next?

Lady L. Pish—

Ch. Pish— [9]

And so on.

Harriet so takes to heart Charlotte's admonition to "write to the moment" that, during the visit Sir Charles makes to the Selbys in order to declare his love to Harriet, she repeatedly runs out of the parlour and upstairs into her "closet" (dressing-room) to write to Lady G. about her emotional turmoil:

They wonder at my frequent absences. It is to oblige you, Lady G. and indeed myself: There is vast pleasure in communicating one's pleasures to a friend who interests herself, as you do, in one's dearest concerns. [10]

It is the 18th-century version of Instagram culture: the urge to document an experience as it is happening becomes more important than the enjoyment of the actual experience itself.

Sir Charles, perhaps realizing that Harriet's closet is her refuge, finally follows her there (in the company of her Aunt Selby) and makes his offer. Harriet never actually verbally accepts (she writes only "I bowed assentingly: I could not Speak" [11]). But she does not decline, and Sir Charles, together with all of Harriet's relations, takes the lack of a "no" to mean "yes."

Setting the date: "A few Femalities"

"I looked down—I could not look up—I was afraid of being thought affected—Yet how could I so soon think of obliging him?"
Illustration engraved by Birrel from a drawing by Stothard. Image: Internet Archive.

The next step, of course, is to set a date. Sir Charles presses Harriet for an "early day"; Harriet insists on waiting for letters expected from Italy, which will carry the news of whether Lady Clementina has changed her mind. (Since Lady Clementina has twice already been given the opportunity to change her mind, the reader may think that this is taking obligingness a step too far.) Sir Charles ultimately is able to convince Harriet to agree to marry in a month—barring a reversal on the part of Lady Clementina.

In the meantime news of the impending marriage reaches Harriet's former suitors, and the couple must deal with each of them in turn. Sir Hargrave Pollexfen, Harriet's abductor and would-be rapist, is now mortified by the contrast between Sir Charles' felicity and his own misery. Mr. Fowler pleads for one more visit. Mr. Orme is so overcome by the melancholy thought of Harriet's happiness with another man that he takes to his bed. Mr. Fenwick, on the rebound, proposes to Harriet's cousin Lucy Selby (she thinks about it for a moment—perhaps the seed of the Charlotte Lucas-Mr. Collins subplot in Pride and Prejudice?—but wisely turns him down). Mr. Greville, who, it turns out, has been stalking Harriet, alternates among angry threats, tears of self-pity, and maudlin congratulations of the happy couple. (These scenes are quite effective in making the reader squirm along with Harriet.)

Sir Charles, perhaps wearied by the neediness of his fiancée's admirers, suggests to her that after the wedding they and her relatives should flee Northamptonshire for Grandison Hall:

Compassion for your neighbouring admirers, will induce you to support me in this request. . .Now, madam, an excursion of a month or two. . .will wean, as I may say, these unhappy men from you. Mr. Orme, Mr, Greville, will not then be obliged to quit their own houses, and this neighbourhood. I shall not, whenever I step into company, see dejected men, whose dejection is owing, as they will think, to my happiness. [12]

And there are the disappointed women to consider as well: Lady Clementina (whose long-awaited letter urges Sir Charles to marry to remove the temptation he represents further out of her reach), Lady Olivia (who also wants Sir Charles to marry as soon as possible), Lady Frances N., and Lady Anne S., of whom Charlotte writes, "I dare not tell my brother how much she loves him: I am sure it would make him uneasy." [13]

Perhaps the most to be pitied is Emily, who reacts badly when Charlotte tells her of the impending marriage:

The dear girl tried to be joyful, and burst into tears!

Why weeps my girl?—O fie! Are you sorry that Miss Byron will have your guardian? I thought you loved Miss Byron.

So I do, madam, as my own self, and more than myself, if possible—But the surprise, madam—Indeed I am glad! What makes me such a fool?—Indeed I am glad!—What ails me to cry, I wonder! It is what I wished, what I prayed for, night and day. Dear madam, don’t tell any-body. I am ashamed of myself.

The sweet April-faced girl then smiled through her tears.

I was charmed with her innocent sensibility; and if you are not, I shall think less of you than ever I did yet. . .

I am sure Emily is no hypocrite: She has no art: she believes what she says. . .Yet it is possible that the subtle thief, ycleped Love, had got very near her heart; and just at the moment threw a dart into one angle of it, which was the something that struck her, all at once, as she phrased it, and made her find tears a relief. [14]

Amazingly, Emily renews her request to live with Sir Charles and Harriet after the marriage. And even after Emily's tears bring her secret feelings for Sir Charles to everyone's awareness, Harriet agrees. Curiously, while walking in the garden Harriet then accidentally (or "accidentally") drops a single page from one of her letters that happens to reveal Emily's love for Sir Charles, and he finds it. Such a paragon of virtue is he, though, that he forbears to read any of it, and accedes to Harriet's request for Emily to live with them. As Harriet writes to Charlotte,

Poor Emily! that is a subject which delights, yet saddens, me—We are laudably fond of distinguishing merit. But your brother’s is so dazzling—Every woman is one’s rival. . .You ask, if, after all, I think it right that she should live with me?—What can I say? For her sake, perhaps, it will not: Yet how is her heart set upon it! For my own sake, as there is no perfect happiness to be expected in this life, I could be content to bear a little pain, were that dear girl to be either benefited or pleasured by it. Indeed I love her, at my heart—And what is more—I love myself for so sincerely loving her. [15]

This cannot turn out well; surely more tears will follow.

The wedding: "Like milk-white heifers led to sacrifice"

"The Doctor gave it to Sir Charles; who, with his usual grace, put it on the finger of the most charming woman in England."

Illustration drawn and engraved by R. Vinkeles. Image: Internet Archive.

The wished-for day finally arrives, and Harriet, pale and trembling, is led into the church.

Sir Charles bowed to the minister to begin the sacred office. . .Emily changed colour frequently. She had her handkerchief in her hand: and (pretty enough!) her sister Bride-maids, little thinking that Emily had a reason for her emotion, which none of them had, pulled out their handkerchiefs too, and permitted a gentle tear or two to steal down their glowing cheeks. I fixed my eye on Emily, sitting outward, to keep her in order. . .

To the question, to my brother, 'Wilt thou have,' &c. he cheerfully answered, I will. Harriet did not say, I will not. [16]

Again, Harriet seems to be unable to give an audible affirmative.

The service concluded, the wedding party returns to Selby House for the nuptial celebrations. Lady G. writes,

The sweet girl was so apprehensive. . .After all, Lady L. we women, dressed out in ribbands, and gaudy trappings, and in Virgin-white, on our Wedding-days, seem but like milk-white heifers led to sacrifice. [17]

This is remarkable language for an 18th-century novel, especially one written by a man.

And so the milk-white heifer is led to the inevitable sacrifice:

 . . .About Eleven, Mrs. Selby, unobserved, withdrew with the Bride. . .My brother instantly addressed me—My Harriet, whispered he, with impatience, returns not this night.

You will see Mrs. Selby, I presume, by-and-by, returned I. . .

His eye was continually turned towards the door. Mrs. Selby, at last, came in. Her eyes shewed the tender leave she had taken of her Harriet.

My brother approached her. She went out: he followed her. In a quarter of an hour she returned.

We saw my brother no more that night.

We continued with our dancings till between Three and Four. [18]

Jane Austen would wind up the novel in a few sentences at this point, but Richardson will continue for another volume. What, the reader will be forgiven from wondering, could possibly sustain the story for another 350 pages? Surely, in a desperate bid to provide some narrative interest, Lady Clementina won't come to England?

Next time: Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 7: The last painful moment

Last time: Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 5: Italy vs. England

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1. Terry Eagleton, The Rape of Clarissa: Writing, Sexuality and Class Struggle in Samuel Richardson. University of Minnesota Press, 1982, p. 96. 
2. Brian Southam, ed., Jane Austen's 'Sir Charles Grandison.' Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 20.
3. Eagleton, p. 97. 
4. Eagleton, p. 99. However, when Eagleton continues by saying "unlike Clarissa, he is not a commodity on the sex and property market," he is clearly in error. As Mr. Reeves writes, "But Sir Charles has a great estate, and still greater expectations from my Lord W. His sister says, he would break half a score hearts, were he to marry." (Volume I, Letter XXVII)
5. Janet Todd, Sensibility: An Introduction. Methuen, 1986, p. 69.
6. Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter VII. Miss BYRON, To Mrs. REEVES.
7. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter VIII. Miss BYRON, To Lady G.
8. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter IX. Lady G. To Miss BYRON.
9. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter IX. Lady G. To Miss BYRON. 
10. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter XVIII. Miss BYRON[, To Lady G]. In Continuation.
11. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter XXII. Miss BYRON[, To Lady G]. In Continuation.
12. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter IX. Lady G. To Miss BYRON. 
13. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter XI. Lady G. To Miss BYRON. 
14. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter IX. Lady G. To Miss BYRON.
15. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter XXVIII. Miss BYRON, To Lady G.
16. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter LII. Lady G., Miss SELBY, To Lady L.
17. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter LIII. Lady G. To Lady L. In Continuation.
18. Sir Charles Grandison, Volume VI, Letter LIII. Lady G. To Lady L. In Continuation.