Just an old-fashioned passage....

[j d worthington]

Came across this while reading The Wyvern Mystery and was rather taken by it, so thought I'd pass it along for those so inclined....

When a sick man dies he leaves his bed and his physic. His best friend asks him not to stay; and sweetheart and kindred concur in putting him out of doors, to lie in a bed of clay, under the sky, come frost or storm or rain; a dumb outcast from fireside, tankard, and even the talk of others.
Tall Charles Fairfield, of the blue eyes, was, in due course, robed in his strange white suit, boxed up and screwed down, with a plated inscription over his cold breast, recounting his Christan and surnames, and the tale of his years.
If from that serene slumber he could have been called again, the loud and exceeding bitter cry; the wild farewell of his poor little Ally would have wakened him; but her loving Ry, her hero, slept on, with the unearthly light on his face till the coffin-lid hid it, and in the morning the athlete passed downstairs on men's shoulders, and was slid reverently into a hearse, and went away to old Wyvern churchyard.
At ten o'clock in teh morning, Charles Fairfield was on the ground. Was old Squire Harry there to meet his son, and follow his coffin to the aisle of the ancient little church, and thence to his place in the church yard? Not he.
"Serve him right," said the squire, when he heard it. "I'm d-----d if he'll lie in our vault; let him go to Parson Maybell, yonder, under the trees; I'll not have him."
So Charles Fairfield is buried there under the drip of those melancholy old trees, close by the gentle vicar and his good and pretty wife, over whom the grass has grown long, and the leaves of twenty summers have bloomed and fallen, and whose forlorn and beautiful little child was to be his bride, and is now his widow.

 

[Memnoch]

very beautiful . . . I'm now filled with melancholy

 

[j d worthington]

Glad you liked it.....

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yup, this is why I like old-fashioned books.

It conveys a stronger sense of mortality than a dozen battle scenes.

 

[j d worthington]

That it does. I also like the way he blends the grotesque and even an ironic sort of homely humor with the tragic and horrific... makes the impact even more powerful.

I agree, Teresa... whether it was because they wrote for readers who had a more leisurely approach to their reading, or whatever the reason, a lot of the older writes caught subtleties and nuances of human emotion that many modern writers -- even some of the best -- often miss. It's a delicacy of touch you just don't see that often anymore... but I find it provides much richer rewards, myself... provides more deeply-affecting emotional resonance....

 

[Jack]

Nice, but then the older writer’s did tend to wax lyrically in their writing, don’t get that very much anymore, which is a shame as I enjoy that style – Cecilia D. T. does it but they do tend to marginally be highly ‘romantic’. Adam Nichols writes very prosy verse – Don’t know too well if its modern lack is something stuck in the west or effects foreign language words as well? Anyway, nice caption.

 

[j d worthington]

Ah, yes... well, that one (believe it or not) was entirely unconscious... didn't get it myself until the day after I posted it.....

As for the rest... well, I'd say the problem is manifold. For one thing, we simply don't know how to use the language as well, these days (with rare exceptions); so we lack the richness in texture, as well as sound, the complexity of simile and metaphor, rhythm, etc. Which is why so many things sound more flat when read aloud -- we've (largely) lost the connection between writing and oral speech over the past century and a quarter.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with a leaner prose style, such as Hemingway or Simenon; but even there it needs to be written carefully, for maximum emotional impact; and we are still much more responsive to sound, when it comes to language, than we are ever likely to be to sight....

 

[Pyan]

As for the rest... well, I'd say the problem is manifold. For one thing, we simply don't know how to use the language as well, these days (with rare exceptions); so we lack the richness in texture, as well as sound, the complexity of simile and metaphor, rhythm, etc. Which is why so many things sound more flat when read aloud -- we've (largely) lost the connection between writing and oral speech over the past century and a quarter.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with a leaner prose style, such as Hemingway or Simenon; but even there it needs to be written carefully, for maximum emotional impact; and we are still much more responsive to sound, when it comes to language, than we are ever likely to be to sight....

The preference these days for less description in writing has reared its head before - in discussion over Tolkien, where not a few people have said "tried to read it, but it's so slow getting into the action" and more recently in the thread about Scott Lynch and The Lies of Locke Lamora, where a couple of people gave up after the first few chapters, quoting too much description as the reason. It also seems to be an opinion expressed quite often in the Critiques thread, where every other comment seems to be on the lines of "cut out the descriptive waffle!"
As I've said before, more and more new books I read seem to be in this style - sparse, dialogue heavy and reluctant to do more than sketch in a few details of landscape and appearance. Bring back lyrical writing, I say!

 

[littlemissattitude]

Wonderfully evocative passage, j. d.

For some reason - and I don't know why, because there is no topical similarity at all, except that there is a funeral referenced in both - it reminds me of the lyrics to a Gram Parsons song, "$1000 Wedding". Probably the melancholy feel to both of them.

 

[Nesacat]

Beautifully melancholy JD. Thanks for posting it. I like the rhythm in the words and the way they flow along. Boxed up and screwed down.

It's a different yet greatly sensory way of looking at mortality in what is, in actuality, a very mundane death. Unlike the glories of battle or the ravages of plague.

 

[Erin99]

Wow, it really touches something inside. I prefer emotive scenes like this. Thanks for sharing the passage, JD, it's beautiful.

 

[Talysia]

There's a kind of simple evocative feeling about this, and this is why I love certain old or old fashioned books.

 

[j d worthington]

Well, for a very different sort of emotional complexity, here's a couple of passages from L. P. Hartley's story, "TheTravelling Grave". Just to help set the stage: Munt collects graves... not just "the long box", but graves of all sorts... including some very odd specimens. Valentine, however, thinks he collects perambulators. This confusion leads to a conversation with grotesque, humorous, and horrific results... proving that horror and humor often strengthen each other and are often very actually two sides of the same coin...

"They perform at one time or another," said Valentine, enjoying himself enormously, "an essential service for us all."
There was a pause. Then Munt asked -- "Where do you generally come across them?"
"Personally I always try to avoid them," said Valentine. "But one meets them every day in the street and -- and here, of course."
"Why do you try to avoid them?" asked Munt rather grimly.
"Since you think about them, and dote upon them, and collect them from all corners of the earth, it pains me to have to say it," said Valentine with relish, "but I do not care to contemplate lumps of flesh lacking the spirit that makes flesh tolerable...."
..........................................................
"Horrified?" cried Valentine. "I think it a charming taste, so original, so -- so human. It ravishes my aesthetic sense; it slightly offends my moral principles."
"I was afraid it might," said Munt.
"I am a great believer in Birth Control," Valentine prattled on. "Every night I burn a candle to Stopes."
"Munt looked puzzled. "But then, how can you object?" he began.
Valentine went on without heeding him.
"But of course by making a corner in the things, you do discourage the whole business. Being exhibits they have to stand idle, don't they? You keep them empty?"
Bettisher started up in his chair, but Munt held out a pallid hand and murmured in a stifled voice --
"Yes, that is, most of them are."
Valentine clapped his hands in ecstasy.
"But some are not? Oh, but that's too ingenious of you. To think of the darlings lying there quite still, not able to lift a finger, much less scream! A sort of mannequin parade!"
"They certainly seem more complete with an occupant," Munt observed.

This was cited, incidentally, by Jack Sullivan in his Elegant Nightmares, a book on the English ghost story....

 

[Jack]

That’s really nice, will have to look out for the writers next expedition to the 2nd hand bookstore. Surprised you have no Eddison JD, so I’ll make up for the lack – No passages of prose are complete without some ‘worm Ouroboros’ quotes ha ha!

"Its walls and pillars were of snow-white marble, every vein whereof was set with small gems: rubies, corals, garnets, and pink topaz. Seven pillars on either side bore up the shadowy vault of the roof; the roof-tree and the beams were of gold, curiously carved, the roof itself of mother-of-pearl. A side aisle ran between each row of pillars, and seven paintings on the western side faced seven spacious windows on the east. At the end of the hall upon a dais stood three high seats, the arms of each composed of two hippogriffs, wrought in gold, with wings spread, and the legs of the seats the legs of the hippogriffs; but the body of each high seat was a single jewel of monstrous size: the left-hand seat a black opal, asparkle with steel-blue fire, the next a fire-opal, as it were a burning coal, the third a seat in alexandrite, purple like wine by night, but deep sea-green by day

"By then was the sun gone down. Under the wings of night uplifted from the east, the unfathomable heights of air turned a richer blue; and here and there, most dim and hard to see, throbbed a tiny point of light: the greater stars opening their eyelids in the gathering dark. Gloom crept upward, brimming the valleys far below like a rising tide on the sea. Frost and stillness waited on the eternal night to resume her reign. The solemn cliffs of Koshtra Belorn stood in tremendous silence, death-pale against the sky."

 

[j d worthington]

Oh, yes... Eddison's descriptions of Lord Gro's hall (not to mention the ascent of Kostra Pivrarcha, or the conjuring in the Iron Tower) are quite beautiful... that's one very lush book....

Jack: If you're looking for that particular Hartley, it is included in The Complete Short Stories of L. P. Hartley, and occasionally reprinted elsewhere (it was in one of the early Fontana Books of Great Ghost Stories -- 1 or 2, as I recall, though I no longer have a copy of them to check with....)

EDIT: Just looked it up. It was in the first Fontana Book, edited by (who else?) Robert Aickman:

The Weird Review: Fontana Great Ghosts

 

[Rosemary]

Nice, but then the older writer’s did tend to wax lyrically in their writing, don’t get that very much anymore, which is a shame as I enjoy that style – Cecilia D. T. does it but they do tend to marginally be highly ‘romantic’. Adam Nichols writes very prosy verse – Don’t know too well if its modern lack is something stuck in the west or effects foreign language words as well? Anyway, nice caption.

Maybe that's why I like Cecilia Dart-Thorntons books!

 

[Jack]

‘Fontana Books of Great Ghost Stories’

Cheers JD, have a look to see if I can hunt them down in the bookstore.
The iron tower descriptive is simply, there just great, no words really come to mind.

‘Maybe that's why I like Cecilia Dart-Thornton’s books!’

Hopeless romantics are us it seems ha ha! Buy them for my twin, then read them afterward, waste not wont not after-all. She really does impress me with her world building and prose, better than Tolkien I would say – Not that anyone can come close to the greatness of Tolkien (Sarcasm), makes you feel sorry for new writers to always be paralleled/in the shadow with older dead writers, new is not always bad -

‘He was clad in bleached linen, buckled over with half-armour in the soft grey tones and pure white highlights of silver; chain mail and plate which lent him the air of a dire machine of metal, or a carapaced insect or a cold-blooded sea-creature, yet within this casing, his excellence was obviously superlative.’

‘Darker than wickedness was his hair, falling unbound past his shoulders. As compelling as forbidden pleasure was his countenance. He stood looking down at her from eyes as black as sloes, eyes as alight with passion as her own - a passion matching in intensity, but very different, had she but known it.’

‘Then he began to speak again. The words of ganconers were enchantment in its true meaning; snares to the senses. Hearkening to the puissance of his syllables, Viviana did not notice the skew of the narrative or its menace, its obscenity. Inside her, a bird sang shrilly, its beak perforating her heart.’

"What maiden wanders here?" he said, or sang, and she did not think to ask his name, nor why he cast no shadow. He did not smile; his look was sorrowful, like that of a brilliant poet precociously doomed - a sadness which, if it affected his comeliness at all, enhanced it.’

 

[j d worthington]

As I mentioned in the monthly reading thread, I've been reading Wilkie Collins' No Name (1862), and I ran across this passage a few days ago. Though it bears some striking resemblances to the passage quoted from Le Fanu earlier, I also think the quietly understated yet almost poetic phrasing here makes this one equally powerful:

The night passed; and she lived through it. The next day came; and she lingered on till the clock pointed to five. At that hour the tidings of her husband's death had dealt the mortal blow. When the hour came round again, the mercy of God let her go to him in the better world. Her daughters were kneeling at the bedside, as her spirit passed away. She left them unconscious of their presence; mercifully and happily insensible to the pang of the last farewell.

Her child survived her till the evening was on the wane, and the sunset was dim in the quiet western heaven. As the darkness came, the light of the frail little life -- faint and feeble from the first -- flickered, and went out. All that was earthly of mother and child lay, that night, on the same bed. The Angel of Death had done his awful bidding; and the two Sisters were left alone in the world.