There were angels in the glass

The Character and Characters of J.A

2011-09-30T17:51:00.004+01:00

For the purposes of this project, the character of Jane Austen was drawn from two sources: a very fine biography by Claire Tomalin (Tomalin, 2000) and a set of family memoires partly composed and otherwise collated by the author’s nephew, Mr. J. E. Austen-Leigh. (Austen-Leigh, 2008) The characters of the three heroines: Emma Woodhouse (Emma), Catherine Morland (Northanger Abbey) and Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice) have, of course, been gleaned from the novels in which they appear. Film versions of the novels and a film about one particular aspect of Austen’s life have also been used as additional sources for the purposes of this project.

Jane Austen

Given the stated purpose of the project, it was decided to start this exercise with a description of Austen’s character and to say something about how it was formed.

She was born on December 16^th 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire and baptised by her father, the vicar of the parish in April of the following year, the first occasion on which she was taken out of the house because it had been a very cold winter. Thus the baby, described as, having a round face, fat cheeks and bright, dark eyes, enjoyed the undivided attention (of her mother) for three cosy months in the first floor bedroom. (Tomalin, p. 3)

However, this idyllic phase came to an end when Austen was about fourteen weeks old. Having been breast-fed up until then by her mother at home, she was then handed over to a local woman in the village to be wet-nursed for as long as necessary and thereafter looked after for a year or eighteen months; until she could be more easily managed at home. This method of infant rearing was used by the Austens with all of their children and was apparently popular with many of their contemporaries. Village mothers were presumably glad of the income while the natural mothers were able to concentrate on any older children, on their husbands and on their other duties. (Tomalin, p. 6)

Modern theories regarding bonding between an infant and its primary carer would condemn this practice on the ground that it might well have negative consequences for the emotional development of the child, producing or enhancing feelings of insecurity and mistrust. It is further suggested that in some cases, this will be reflected in subsequent adult relationships. (Attachment Theory) Referring to this, Tomalin remarks that, in Jane’s case, the emotional distance between child and mother is obvious throughout her life; and not only between child and mother. The most striking aspect of Jane’s adult letters is their defensiveness. They lack tenderness towards herself as much as to others. They are the letters of someone who does not open her heart; and, in the adult who avoids intimacy, you sense the child who was uncertain where to expect love or to look for security, and armoured herself against rejection. (Tomalin, p. 7)

This was not the sole period of separation experiences by Austen as a child, she was twice sent away to boarding schools. Her reaction to this may be gauged by the following sentence written at the age of thirty-two and after hearing of two small nieces sent unwillingly to such a school. One’s heart aches for a dejected mind of eight years old. (Tomalin, p. 34) In fact, she was first sent away when she was only seven. At her first school, in Southampton she quickly caught an infectious fever brought back by troops returning from abroad, almost dying as a result. (Tomalin, p. 38) Undeterred by this, her parents, having allowed her a year at home to recover from her illness, sent her off again, this time to a school at Reading. No dramatic incidents followed but Austen’s memories of the school seem to suggest that it was at best, a harmless, slatternly place. (Tomalin, p. 44)

These further lessons in insecurity cannot have done anything to dispel any sense she might already have had of the impermanence of relationships and the unreliability of love.

Even so, both the biography and the memoir referred to in the Introduction contain many examples of Austen’s loving attention to children and, in varying degrees, to her siblings and some of her cousins. In the memoire, the author describes the varying degrees of affection she showed to these diverse people. From his observations and from those of other family members whom he quotes, a kind of ranking of affection emerges. There would seem to be no doubt that her sister Cassandra held first place in her heart, after which came her other siblings, her cousin Eliza Hancock, her parents and then all the numerous nieces and nephews of her very large extended family. (Austen-Leigh, 2008)

There is no doubt that she could love but it is also clear that in each of these relationships she remained independent, giving what she gave on her own terms, perhaps, as a result of her youthful experiences. By the time the memoire came to be written, that was the settled pattern of Austen’s life but there is reason to believe that it might have been otherwise for, even if she were, armoured against rejection, an event occurred when she was twenty-years old which might have altered the course of her life. On this single occasion she overcame whatever psychological mechanisms usually held her back and risked rejection by engaging in an intimate relationship. In a letter dated January 9^th 1796, Austen sent birthday greetings to her sister, referred to some other matters and then wrote of a young man whom she had just met. His name was Tom Lefroy; he was a cousin of the Lefroys, neighbours and friends of the Austens, and was down in Hampshire for a three-week Christmas holiday. He came from Limerick, had been called to the Bar in London and was clever and charming. (Tomalin, p. 115) After this, writes Tomalin, Tom Lefroy keeps putting in more and more appearances in her letters. From many other references in further letters between the sisters, it is clear that, for a time, Austen was in love with Tom Lefroy and he with her. But the match was impossible; he had no disposable income and neither did she. He returned to London and it seems unlikely that they ever met again. (Tomalin, p. 121) The film, Becoming Jane provides an acceptable version of the beginning of this relationship but adds an implausible ending. (Jerrold, 2006) Nevertheless, the film’s portrayal of Austen as an intelligent, opinionated and determined young woman is more accurate than that perpetuated by succeeding generations of critics who seem to have been bent on presenting her as irredeemably insipid.

Austen was one of eight children, her parents had many relatives, and there were innumerable cousins and friends. Visiting local or distant relatives and friends was a frequent pastime. Six of her siblings were boys, four of them older that she. For a while, her father ran a preparatory school for boys at the parsonage and several of the pupils were boarders, who were, it seems, treated as extra members of the family. (Tomalin, p. 25) Austen was easy with boys, was not shy, played cricket and baseball and, as a child, ran wild in the fields. All this seems to have produced a tough, outgoing, self-reliant child who was never tongue-tied and one with an extremely wide circle of friends, both intimate and slight. As an adult she retained these qualities but added to them an extraordinary ability to understand people and to portray them upon the page.

The Austen found in the biography and in the memoires is a different creature than might have been imagined by generations of readers who, relying for their image of her on the deceptions practiced by critics, have seen forced to picture her as a rather retired lady who invented stories as a kind of hobby; perhaps instead of drawing or making music. More recent scholarship has revealed the entirely unordinary life she led and provided a glimpse into the creative processes of this extraordinarily resilient and talented writer.

Emma Woodhouse

When the book opens, Emma is twenty-years old, beautiful, intelligent diligent and independently wealthy, money having been settled on her in her infancy. She is living with her father, an extremely retiring old gentleman whose hypochondriacal tendencies make him anxious about going out and so he prefers to entertain at home. Emma’s mother is dead and her ex-governess, Miss Taylor, recently married. Her only sibling, her sister Isabella, is married and living with her husband, John, and their children in London. Therefore, Emma and her father are the only family members living at Hartfield, their large county house.

A recent film treatment of the story opens with the marriage of Miss Taylor to Mr. Weston, a marriage for which Emma claims to have brought about, or at least fostered. (McGrath, 2003) And here another aspect of her character is revealed, she persists that her own judgement is impeccable. Acting on this, and in spite of entreaties of her friends too desist, she is determined to arrange a marriage between the young vicar of the parish and her own new protégé, Harriet Smith. Emma has taken Harriet up as a good cause in much the spirit as she delivers food to the poor, as one doing a service to unfortunates who cannot help themselves. She explains to her father and to their friend Mr. Knightly, that she is sure that Mr. Elton would be glad of her help because, referring to the marriage ceremony just performed for Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston, when he was joining their hands today, he looked so very much as if her would like the same kind office done for him. I think very well of Mr. Elton and this is the only way I have of doing him a service. (Austen, Emma, p. 11)

Harriet Smith’s parentage is a mystery. In the subtle language of the period, she is described as the natural child of somebody. (Austen, Emma, p. 19) It is probable that her father is a gentleman and a man of means because her education and her living expenses have all been provided for, although anonymously. She is beautiful, intelligent enough, and without affectation. She has become acquainted with a young, well set-up, local yeoman farmer who has fallen in love with her and wants to marry her. Harriet is not averse to the idea but the notion of being in love is so new to her that she asks Emma for advice. Emma dissuades her from accepting the proposal. Emma is aware of and usually honours the fine distinctions between the social classes but acting on a whim, has decided to promote the unfortunate Harriet to the gentry by arranging her marriage with the unsuspecting Mr. Elton.

This she tries to do with results both comic and almost tragic. Mr. Elton eventually confesses that he had never thought anything of Miss Smith except as an adjunct to Emma herself for whom he has developed a passion. Emma is distressed by this but worse is to follow. Harriet, with, as she mistakenly thinks, Emma’s encouragement; feels herself to be in love with Mr. Knightly, a circumstance which, when she confesses it to Emma, sends that lady into a passion of regret, for at that moment, Emma realises that her own feelings for gentleman are far from being almost-sisterly as she has up to that time thought., Mr. Knightly, she thinks, must marry no one but herself. (Austen, Emma, p. 395) This is strange because up until then she had not thought of marrying anyone because her wealth insulated her from the need to do so. But at that moment, she realises that that is not the only reason for marrying.

Social divisions and the niceties of social stratification have already been mentioned but it should be said that although Emma and her friend Mr. Knightly are aware of these distinctions, neither of them is in any sense a snob, it may be a rather fine difference to make but their attitudes as revealed elsewhere in the book, show them to be aware of these divisions but as regarding them as simply the natural order of things.

In fact Emma’s only real social sin is committed not out of snobbery but because she momentarily gives way to irritation with Miss Bates, a good soul but an inveterate chatterbox. The event is a picnic. In a weak moment, Emma suggests that a game they are playing in which one may say only three foolish things would be unfair to Miss Bates because Miss Bates would inevitably say many more than three such things. Miss Bates is devastated. Later Mr. Knightly takes Emma aside and remonstrates with her. Emma quickly recognises her fault, bitterly regrets her behaviour and enters her carriage unable even to speak. Her feelings were, combined only of anger against herself, mortification and deep concern. (Austen, Emma, p. 365)

The important thing is that Emma is young and far from fixed in her ways. As the plot advances, she grows in understanding and is glad to do so. Essentially, she is a good young woman whose only real faults of judgement are committed out of ignorance rather than snobbery or evil intent.

Emma is a long book, four hundred and seventy-one pages in the edition quoted from for the purposes of this essay. It contains many more characters, both important and minor, than can usefully be described here and many more plot twists. But the important aspects of the heroine’s character have been revealed in these few extracts from the work. When the story opens Emma is clever, wilful, good-hearted and charitable but also lacks insight and so makes mistakes, some of them harmful. But eventually she rids herself of this failure and thus becomes the person Mr. Knightly and we want her to be.

Catherine Morland

Northanger Abbey ends with a two marriages, that of Catherine Morland to Henry Tilney and that of Henry’s sister to the man whom she has wanted to marry for some time; both marriages having become possible after the objections of Tilney pere had been overcome. Such a dénouement could scarcely be more conventional for a novel of the period. In spite of that, however, Northanger Abbey is not at all typical of the novels of the period. As is the case with all of Austen’s major works; it is a very individual product. In developing the plot of the book, Austen chose to use the gothic novel as a sort of foundation for her story but to subvert or twist its plot devices for her own ends. In telling the story of Catherine Morland; of her transition from naïve young girl to more worldly wise woman, Austen manages, with her usual consummate skill, to produce in Catherine and her fellow actors in the drama, people who seem utterly real and believable but who are actually devices with which to confront not only the deficiencies of gothic novels but more particularly to illuminate many of the less edifying aspects of late eighteenth century society.

At the beginning of the book the narrator describes the domestic arrangements of the Morland family. They live in rural seclusion, Mr. Morland being a country clergyman. They are not rich but are comfortably off as Mr. Morland has, a considerable independence, besides two good livings. (Austen, Northanger Abbey, p. 5) This is just as well, for there are ten children, Catherine being the fourth eldest of them. As a child she exhibited a preference for rumbustious play as opposed to what might have been regarded as more appropriate feminine pursuits. This may have been the result of some instinct for adventure but if so it was certainly reinforced by the fact that her three preceding siblings were boys. She joined in their games with pleasure, rolled about with them, ran wildly about the countryside and was, in modern day parlance, a tomboy. But by the age of fifteen, she is seen to have changed, to have become conscious of her looks, to have begun to read novels and to, long for balls, (Austen, Northanger Abbey, p. 6)

At this stage her chosen reading material consists entirely of books that are all story – the more sensational the better – and nothing instructional. By seventeen though, she has broadened her reading to include the words of several of the then popular poets as well as some of Shakespeare’s plays, these excursions into the higher realms of literature being undertaken less for the literary merits of the works but rather for the useful quotations that they might supply to young heroines in training. Thus prepared, Catherine is ready and willing to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Allan, rich neighbours of the Morlands, when they invite her to go with them to Bath.

A recent film of Northanger Abbey (Jones, 2008) has proved of very little help so far as this project is concerned. Up until the departure for Bath, the film script, though unexceptional bears a certain resemblance to the narrative of the novel but thereafter it maintains only the loosest connection with it. The characterisation of several of the important participants is very poor and some of the plot devices are ludicrous. It is not recommended.

Almost as soon as possible after arriving at Bath, Catherine and Mrs. Allan attend their first assembly but Mrs. Allan, knowing no one in the room, cannot help Catherine to get a partner. However, when, at the next assembly, the Master of Ceremonies introduces her to a young man, Mr. Tilney, who invites her to dance, she readily assents and shows, by her ready conversation and willingness to express opinions, that although she has little knowledge of the world, she is neither shy nor timid in the presence of men.

Catherine‘s next visit to the Pump-Room is disappointing in that she does not, as she had hoped, find Mr. Tilney there but does, through the good offices of Mrs. Allan, encounter Mrs. Thorpe and her daughters, among them Isabella, three yours older than Catherine and infinitely wiser about the world. Isabella is engaged to Catherine’s brother James but at this stage in the plot, the engagement is secret. Isabella, who like all her family believes the Morlands to be rich and Catherine an heiress, immediately makes Catherine believe that she favours her above anyone else; they go about together, whisper delightedly about the shocking novels they have read or will read and spend almost every waking moment together. Catherine has no experience of people like Isabella and so does not see her flirtatiousness and archness with men for what it is and neither does she realise that the excessive praise heaped upon her by Isabella is simply a ploy to draw her into the Thorpe’s circle so that John Thorpe may court her. At this stage, Catherine is an innocent abroad.

Soon enough, John Thorpe and James Morland arrive at Bath. Henry Tilney returns to the city accompanied by his sister, Eleanor, their brother Frederick and their father General Tilney. And, as the old phrase has it, the plot then thickens considerably. After some alarming and some charming incidents Catherine has developed an intense dislike of John Thorpe, an equally strong affection and admiration for Henry Tilney, has adopted Eleanor Tilney almost as an elder sister and become distressed by Isabella’s flirting with Frederick Tilney. But in spite of the closeness she has developed with Henry and Eleanor, she is then amazed when General Tilney invites her to stay at the Abbey. She does not know that he, having been misinformed by Thorpe that she is an heiress, has become determined to engineer a marriage between herself and Henry in order to increase the family fortune. At the Abbey, Catherine has to overcome two gothic fancies before becoming perfectly rational; the first the idea that the place is haunted or at any rate a place of spooky goings on and the second, more serious notion, that General Tilney may have murdered his wife or is, perhaps, keeping her locked in a chamber, these notions being brought on by the idea that the Abbey is the sort of place where such things happen in the gothic novels she has been reading. The first notion is easily disposed of and the second with little more difficulty when Henry points out the absurdity of the idea. At this, she becomes a more or less rational being who, though still capable of being upset by Isabella’s continuing duplicity is nevertheless ready to take her place in the adult world and does so as a result of her good sense, her loyalty, her generosity and her loving heart.

Elizabeth Bennett

In his memoire of Jane Austen, her nephew remarks on the extremely lifelike characters she created, so real, he writes, that some persons have surmised that she took her characters from individuals with whom she had been acquainted. (Austen-Leigh, p. 117) He goes on to dissent from that view but to accept that her characters are so fully rounded as to seem real. Elizabeth Bennett, the heroine of Pride and Prejudice is, perhaps one of the most realistic of Austen’s characters; her opinions and attitudes leap of the page, her fears and concerns arouse our sympathy and her outspokenness elicits applause.

Elizabeth is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett of Longbourn. She has four sisters and no brothers and is the second eldest of the children. When the book opens, she is nineteen years old. The plot centres on the necessity of getting the girls well married because the Longbourn estate was left to Mr. Bennett in such a way that it cannot be inherited by a daughter and, as he has no son, it will pass, on his death, to the nearest male heir; in this case a cousin, Mr. Collins, a clergyman.

The ramifications of various romantic attachments form the substance of the plot but as ever, Austen uses these devices to illustrate the nuances of eighteenth century social and sexual politics as well providing a thoroughly entertaining narrative. Her observations on the attitudes of grandees in respect of those whom they think of as their social inferiors provoke irritation and anger in equal measure because, being largely concerned with money and the somewhat spurious notion of good breeding, they take no account of the qualities of mind and spirit possessed by those whom they regard as inferiors. Although Mr. Bennett is a country gentleman, his income from his estate is not large enough to provide his daughters with substantial dowries and so their chances of marrying well are slim.

Four men figure prominently in the narrative: Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Wickham and Mr. Collins. Bingley and Darcy are wealthy and somewhat aristocratic, Wickham is a scoundrel and Collins is an odious toady. By the end, of the book, three of the Bennett girls are married; Jane, the eldest, to Bingley, Elizabeth to Darcy and Lydia to the scoundrel Wickham. This is not the place to rehearse the various twists of the plot which result in these marriages; it is instead the place to reveal those aspects of Elizabeth’s character which bring about the happy unions of herself and Jane to their deserving husbands and of the necessary union of their rackety youngest sister Lydia to the scoundrel Wickham.

Unlike Jane, who always sees people as essentially virtuous and is, consequently surprised to find them flawed, Elizabeth, though generally of an amiable, sunny disposition; is sharply aware of the follies and nonsense of others, and ready to censure them for those failings. (Austen, Pride and Prejudice, p. 15) She does not suffer fools at all, let alone gladly. Her response to a proposal of marriage from Mr. Collins illustrates the point. Being conscious of the correct polite forms of address on such occasions, she at first replies decorously that, while sensible of the honour of his proposal, she cannot accept it but when he stupidly persists in regarding that as a mere ploy, she drops all polite pretence and tells him in forthright language that it is impossible for her to accept his proposal because neither of them would be made happy by its acceptance. (Austen, Pride and Prejudice, p. 104)

Nor does she allow considerations of rank or wealth to deter her from speaking honestly and acting resolutely. When the august Lady Catherine de Bourgh attempts to dissuade her from becoming engaged to Mr. Darcy, and in the process tries to intimidate her and succeeds in insulting her, she answers all Her Ladyship’s remarks forthrightly and with candour. The interchange is too long to repeat minutely but its flavour may be judged from the following extracts,

Miss Bennett, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to language such as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.

But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will behaviour such as this ever induce me to be explicit.

And later on in the conversation;

Obstinate headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you……. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointments.

That will make your ladyship’s situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me! (Austen, Pride and Prejudice, p. 346)

But, when Elizabeth is not fighting off odious suitors or enraged relatives, she always appears cheerful and caring. She supports her foolish mother through her troubles and is able to soothe her father’s worries because although he pretends to regard his collection of daughters as all silly and ignorant, he immediately contradicts himself by saying that, Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters. (Austen, Pride and Prejudice, p. 5)

Of course, Elizabeth’s most important encounters are with Mr. Darcy who, when he first proposes marriage, insults her by referring to their unequal positions in society and lamenting that his passion forces him to beg her to marry him in spite of that difference. Her resolute and candid refusal, during which she calls him to account not only for his current behaviour but also his efforts to detach Bingley from Jane for the same reasons and also for, what she believes to be, his unjust treatment of Wickham, is a verbal tour de force. Naturally, by the end of the work, he has relinquished his conceit and recognising her real worth and she has come to return his love and so the piece ends happily.

A word about the six-part BBC television dramatisation of the novel: it is generally acknowledged to be a fine and accurate representation of the book, possibly because the extensive running time allows for more plot development and for the inclusion of more scenes than is possible in a single 90 minute film and partly because of the superb job done by the technical staff and the actors. In my view, it probably introduced a whole new audience to Jane Austen and, it is to be hoped, to her books.

Contrasts, comparisons and a conclusion

The differences between the three heroines described here are mainly differences of wealth and status. They are all sensible and one, Elizabeth Bennett, is acknowledged to be clever. They are all warm-hearted and generously affectionate. Although they are all gentlemen’s daughters, only one, Emma Woodhouse, is independently wealthy. However, none of the others values money above love; although each remains sensible of the necessity of having enough money on which to live. Only one heroine, Catherine Morland, is described as having enjoyed some of the same childhood pleasures as Austen; the rumbustious interaction with boys, the games of cricket and baseball and the running about the fields. Luckily, she was not, it seems, subjected either to the care of a village wet-nurse or to the unhappiness of time at boarding school. Each of the women achieves union with the man whom she most admires and loves. In the cases of Catherine Morland and Elizabeth Bennett, this is achieved against familial opposition. As has been remarked, this was not the case for Austen.

Jane Austen made little money from her writing and had no other wealth. Nevertheless, she was reportedly as generous with her slender resources as she could be. More importantly, her generosity of spirit coupled with her resilience and the warmth of her personality seems to have endeared her to all of her near and distant relatives and her friends. Each of her heroines possesses all of these qualities, though in varying degrees. It is as though, Austen took herself, her own attitudes and beliefs and poured them into her creatures thus creating exemplars for women. In providing generally happy beginnings as well as happy endings for each of her heroines, she was more generous to them than fate or circumstance had been to her, the only really significant difference between Austen and her heroines.

Works Cited

Attachment Theory. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

Austen, J. (2006 Edition). Emma. London: Headline Book Publishing.

Austen, J. (2003). Northanger Abbey. Oxford: Oxford World Classics.

Austen, J. (2006 Edition). Pride and Prejudice. London: Headline Review.

Austen-Leigh, J. (2008). A Memoir of Jane Austen and other family recollections. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jerrold, J. (Director). (2006). Becoming Jane [Motion Picture].

Jones, J. (Director). (2008). Northanger Abbey [Motion Picture].

McGrath, D. (Director). (2003). Emma [Motion Picture].

Tomalin, C. (2000). Jane Austen - A Life. London: Penguin.

The John Hewitt Society: Summer 2010

2010-08-08T11:26:00.015+01:00

Last week I was at the 23rd John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh

The theme of the five-day event was "Back to Uncertainty: Considering other possibilities" Uncertainty being an inherent element of life, especially political life, in Northern Ireland and being, perhaps, vital to the preservation of peace. Terrorists, after all, are generally certain about their ignoble causes.

Five days passed in a pleasant blur with talks, interviews, readings, creative-writing workshops, panel discussions and evening entertainments. And excellent eating and drinking.

Two evening entertainments stand out:
A play called Melody given by the Lurig Drama Group from Cushendall and a concert by four outstanding musicians who usually work as two duos but sometimes , as on this occasion, as a quartet. The play, a comedic two-hander of great originality, was acted superbly and brought the house down while the concert, given as The Heartstring Sessions, was sublime for its musicality and the sheer pleasure of watching exceptionally talented musicians playing seemingly for the sheer joy of it.

Participants at the School included poets, prose writers, critics, musicians, politicians, an art historian, a retired editor of the Irish Times, a professor of sociology and many ordinary punters like me, each of whom was urged to join one of the creactive writing workshops; either poetry, prose, drama or memoire writing. I became a poet for the week, producing works to order; sometimes in minutes, otherwise overnight. Here is the least bad of them, a so-called list- poem.

Beside the Seaside
Oh I do like to be beside the seaside,
Beside the seaside,
Beside the sea

But
As I walked on the strand
Yesterday, I found:

The Umbilical of an Orca – Cut
Two Plovers eggs – Blown
Three ‘Goldstar’ beer bottles – Smashed
Eleven Lords – A-Weeping
A beached Exxon tanker – Seeping
Some striped sand – aggregating
A lump of Pitchblende – Warming

And
A love letter,
Him to her variety – Inelegantly
Thrown down

Comforted by all this lovely decay,
I lay down on the heavy water
Took up my pen and the Paper
And crossworded there,

At the seaside,
On the sea

The Summer School was an exciting, exhilarating, informative, educative, friendship-forming, entertaining week and I will be going back next year.

After the School was over, I had a couple of days in the Glens of Antrim to suck in the good air and to think and also to take in a guided trip around some of the sites associated with John Hewitt. Along the way some of Hewitt's poems were read aloud by a local actor, whose style and sense of rhythm really brought the works to life.

A reading at Oisin's Grave

Wihelmina.

2010-02-01T00:20:00.003Z

“Do you know Streatham?”

The speaker was male, seemingly young and spoke English without much of an accent. The street was lit by a few lamps strung out along its length but the trees along its unpaved sides provided shadows enough to hide the speaker from our view.

We stopped walking, utterly surprised to be suddenly addressed like that in the middle of nowhere and in a foreign country to boot. Eric recovered first. He said, “Quite well, do you know it?”

“Oh yes, I was a student there. Two years ago, I attended the, he paused as though searching for a word, College of Further Education.” “My father said I must go there to improve my English because I will be the boss at the Gasthof when he retires.” “You know the Gasthof.”

It was a statement not a question and it was only too true, we knew the Gasthof. Every evening after dinner we would go along and drink beer there and chat about the trips we had made that day, what we had done in our free-time and inevitably, the attractions of the girls we’d seen along the way. At the Gasthof the locals largely ignored us, except for Wilhelmina, the barmaid, who cheerily sold us the beer even though she must have known we were underage – or at least we would have been in England. Here in the Rhineland, maybe in all of Germany for all we ignoramuses knew, fifteen-year olds could drink beer freely. And it wasn’t that she didn’t know that we were still at school because during the day we had to traipse about wearing our uniform blazers and in any event, the village was so small that everyone knew who we were.

The village was, and I suppose still is, called Nieder Heimbach. Nieder means lower. You’ll not be very surprised to learn then that much higher up the valley, Ober Heimbach lorded it over us and over the village between us, Mittel Heimbach. The inhabitants of these villages, though eternally locked together by nomenclature, citizenship and language, had a habit of regarding themselves as living almost in separate States and seemed to radiate a sort of amused contempt for their Lower, Upper or Middle neighbours. Oddly enough though, their attitude to actual foreigners, to us anyway, was friendly, we were greeted, as was the habit in that Catholic region, with a cheerful Gruss Gott wherever we went. But to be greeted in English and to be asked about a place so utterly without attraction for tourists or even for Brits who hadn’t been born there was, shall I say, surprising.

The young man emerged from the shadows at the side of the road, holding out his hand in the formal greeting that Germans of all ages and classes used in those days. I grasped his hand, hardening my grip as I always did so that no one would think I was weedy. “Gattinger,” he said. I gaped at him, all my cool gone. Eric whispered through clenched teeth, “Say your name!” I quickly obeyed feeling angry and foolish because in the heat of the moment I had forgotten that bit of the briefing.

Now that he was visible, I could see that our new acquaintance was, maybe, three years older than we were. Eric asked him his first name, we gave him ours and we all laughed aloud, perhaps because Seamus must have seemed alien to him and Wighard sounded pretty odd to us. Wighard told us he was waiting to go to University but was still attending some classes at Grammar school, though he called it a Gymnasium which made us think at first that he was keeping fit while waiting. He told us that he had a regular girlfriend and that he was going to study Theology at University but was also very interested in international politics and instantly proved this by asking, “What do you think about Macmillan?”

“What do you mean,” I blurted out, instantly regretting the fact that I sounded so naïve. I began to sweat with embarrassment. I could not remember a time when I had not reacted in this way to simple questions about almost anything but particularly when the questioner seemed to be a man or especially a woman of the world. In those days one had to be cool to be in but I could hardly ever manage it, though once in a while I managed to fake it. Now of course, I assume that back then almost everyone else was faking it too but if they were, they hid it better than I was ever able to do.

Wighard explained, “He put out many ministers, did he not?”

“Yes,” said Eric gravely. “He looks and talks like a country gentleman but he’s really utterly ruthless.” I knew that Eric had got that opinion from his father but I didn’t say anything.

“Oh yes,” Wighard said cheerfully. “All politicians are like that.” “Even our Adenauer, whom your newspapers think is a saint, is really a ruthless swine.”

Eric laughed and changed the subject. “You going to be a priest then, Wighard?” “Theology, I mean?”

Wighard shrugged, “No, at least I don’t think so, I have a girlfriend and, well, you know?”

We knew alright, of course we knew. Masters were in the habit of asking us, on average once a term; whether we thought we had a vocation to the priesthood. It was just another trial Catholic schoolboys had to go through in those days but it was annoying. When I was first asked, I didn’t know what to say, as usual I just looked embarrassed but then I hit upon the notion of saying, that I didn’t think I had a vocation yet, as though the question were still open. Seemed to satisfy the inquisitor without committing me to anything. The problem, of course, was girls or even, God willing, women. How on earth we wondered could you go through life without sex? Needless to say, nobody I knew had done anything more adventurous than groping at that time but we were all very sure that we could not, so to speak, take the pledge.

It was getting late so we quickly arranged to meet at the Gasthof on the next evening. Wighard, magnanimous on his father’s behalf, cried, “The first two beers on the house!” as he disappeared down the street.

Later in bed, held firmly in place by the weighty goose-down quilt, I thought about the conversation with Wighard and that led me on to thinking about girls and that, I guess, was what made me dream hopefully of Wilhelmina.

Sick Kids

2010-02-01T00:14:00.003Z

The children’s hospital was on the edge of our town in those days, though now of course the town has quite swallowed it up. When I was five years old I had to live in the hospital for a few weeks having been stricken with the worst bout of asthma that I had ever known even though I was, by that time an experienced asthma sufferer. It refused to yield to vapour rub and red flannel, the treatments I had had up until then and so I was taken to the hospital to see the specialist.

In telling me this, my mother adopted the slightly hushed but emphatic tone she used when speaking about an eminence of the Church. As a child, of course, I accepted this unreserved and uncritical respect for such people as natural but as time passed, I learnt, as most people do, that such feelings are simply an example of the awe which we humans are apt to experience in the presence of anything arcane and mysterious. Unfortunately, my mother never lost her innocence in this regard and so, as I grew older, we often quarreled about it.

My father told me in his straightforward way that he would soon be taking me to the hospital where I would stay for a while so that the doctors could make me better. Having never been away from home before, I felt odd about it. I liked the idea of a trip but I was nervous about being away on my own and sure that I would miss my family. I asked my father what I would do at the hospital. He said that the doctors would try different treatments until they found one that would help me. I asked if they would put the vapour rub on my chest; he rather doubted it.

I was sad to hear that because having the vapour rub put on was extraordinarily pleasant. I used to squirm with delight as my mother rubbed the slightly sticky stuff onto my chest. It smelled of mothballs but the feeling of it oozing across my body was thrilling. And after I had experienced it once or twice even the smell became pleasant because it heralded relief from the awful, gasping, chest-wrenching fight for breath which I so often experienced when an attack happened.

My father took me to the hospital in the car. I loved driving in the car. We had a Buick with a bench seat in the front, which in those pre-seat belt days, meant that I could sit right next to him as we whizzed along. Even now I like to drive fast but now I understand why I like to experience the primitive thrill of speed but when I was a child it was all sensation; like being on a rollercoaster or tobogganing downhill.

When we got to the hospital, I was surprised to see that it was set in a park. A vast green field edged with trees surrounded it and grassy slopes led down from the building onto the field. On our way to the carpark, we passed quite close to the edge of one of the slopes and it was then that I saw that, what I had taken from a distance to be blue blobs were actually children all dressed in blue shorts and shirts. Accompanied by nurses, they were running around on the field and rolling down the grassy slopes. I did not know what to make of this and asked my father who the children were. He told me not to bother him; he was looking for a parking space and needed to concentrate. I waited impatiently until we were parked and then asked him again but by then we were headed into the hospital building and he was preoccupied again.

Eventually, we reached an office where a nurse welcomed us. My father answered her questions, then handed me over to her, told me to be a good boy, said he would return that evening and left. I worried at first but the nurse was kind and I soon felt quite happy. She told me that the children I had seen outside were also patients, then explained that patients meant children who, like me, were at the hospital for a while because they were sick and had to be made better.

The hospital smelled clean and disinfected. The smell reminded me of how our house smelled after Mrs. Breitling had cleaned it but other homely smells were missing, no coffee or tobacco, for instance. The nurse showed me around but the little ward kitchen was odourless and too white. Our kitchen at home was yellow and red; colours that made me feel warm, and even when no one was cooking, it smelled of spices and the green herbs my mother grew in pots and kept on the window cills.

The nurse told me that her name was Anne-Marie and that she would look after me in the daytime and that another nurse, called Josephine, would look after me at night. Anne-Marie told me that it was just about time for lunch and took me to the room where everyone ate their meals. Most of the tables and chairs were child-size but there were a few bigger ones for the nurses. The children in blue were crowding into the place by the time we arrived but to my intense disappointment they ignored me. Anne-Marie took me to a table, found me a place and told me to remember it. “This is your place, Anton,” she said, “Until you leave, this will be reserved for you.”

I liked the food. We had a stew of meat and vegetables which tasted warm and smooth and which almost filled me up but when I saw that there was apple-strudel for pudding, I found my appetite again and took a big piece because, next to gooseberries and custard, strudel was my favourite pudding. I took a big mouthful and savoured it. At home my mother always told me to chew everything seven times and then swallow. But I loved the rich cinnamony taste of strudel too much to do that with it. I looked over my shoulder at Anne-Marie; she just smiled at me and said nothing about chewing or swallowing. I relaxed and chewed slowly and lightly, just letting the strudel disintegrate in my mouth before swallowing small amounts of it.

After lunch we were all taken to our wards for an afternoon rest. As I fell asleep, I felt warm and easy in my mind and I remember thinking that I didn’t mind too much about being in hospital.

Recent Thoughts

2010-01-10T19:06:00.004Z

Today there is nothing to say
So I will not utter.
But then speech is
Silvery while
Silence

The Germans have a word for it.

2009-09-14T15:46:00.053+01:00

Recently I visited Ireland twice in as many months having not been in the country for several years. The first visit was to Dublin, the more recent one to Cushendun, a village in the Glens Of Antrim in Northern Ireland.

Arriving into Dublin I found nothing I recognised but then I hadn't seen the place for more than two decades. Time passing has wrought changes in us both, in the case of the city for the better. No longer a grimy, slightly down at heel, poor poetical relation of a place but a modern metropolis possessing every good aspect of the 21st century and every bad aspect too, of course.

There is no room in this short piece to list all of the changes the Republic has witnessed so I have chosen one to represent all of them. Tragedy is a bred in the bone part of the Irish psyche. But when I was young the way in which historical tragedies were remembered in Ireland disgusted me even though I hadn't the words or the wit to say why it did so. Now, I would describe some, a lot, of what I saw and heard then as ersatz sentimentality, an almost cosy wallowing in the tragic past. But on this recent visit to Dublin I found, in a park, this memorial to the victims of the famine. It is an honest work, stark, unsentimental and profoundly moving.

The changes in Northern Ireland are even more profound. Although the peace now reigning there is precarious and although there are still occasional, deadly terrorist outrages; life in the North seems, to this infrequent visitor, to have become blessedly almost normal.

My images of Cushendun and the area around show it to be what it is, an idyl. To experience the very essence of tranquillity, walk on the shore there or hike into the hills.

No picture of Northern Ireland would be complete without a memorial to those murdered or injured during the decades long 'Troubles' but I have been unable to find a single, unifying memorial to all of the victims of the conflict; perhaps it is too soon for that.

These trips to Ireland woke a feeling in me, a feeling too long submerged by the habit of existance. The Germans have a word for it, Heimat, a word which to German ears means more than just 'homeland.' Heimat evokes a feeling as well as a place, an identity as well as a location, a physical, spiritual and poetical reality. Ireland's gravity pull on her separated children, is like that.

Belief and Doubt

2009-08-17T05:05:00.013+01:00

For some time I had been wondering about the ways in which these states of mind both counteract and compliment one another but had not put my inconclusive meanderings into print as they were neither original nor conclusive.

But then a recent re-reading of Graham Green's wonderful novel Monsignor Quixote provided the perfect answer. Late in the story, the Monsignor and his 'Sancho,' the communist ex-mayor of the town in which the two men live, discuss the matter .

Enrique Zancas, otherwise Sancho:
"Do you know what drew me to you in El Toboso father? It wasn't that you were the only educated man in the place. I'm not so fond of educated men as all that. Don't talk to me of the intelligentsia or culture. You drew me to you because because I thought you were the opposite of myself. A man gets tired of himself, of that face he sees every day when he shaves, and all my friends were in just the same mould as myself. I would go to Party meetings in Ciudad Real when it became safe after Franco was gone, and we would call ourselves 'comrade' and we were a little afraid of each other because we knew each other as well as each one knew himself. We quoted Marx and Lenin to one another like passwords to prove we could be trusted, and we never spoke about the doubts which came to us on sleepless nights. I was drawn to you because I thought you were a man without doubts. I was drawn to you, I suppose, in a way by envy."

Monsignor Quixote:
"How wrong you were, Sancho. I am riddled by doubts. I am sure of nothing, not even the existence of God, but doubt is not treachery as you communists seem to think. Doubt is human. Oh, I want to believe that it is all true - and that want is the only certain thing I feel. I want others to believe too - perhaps some of their belief might rub off on me. I think the baker believes."

"That was the belief I thought you had."

"Oh no, Sancho, perhaps then I could have burnt my books and lived really alone, knowing that all was true. 'Knowing', how terrible that might have been. "

Extract taken from
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene - Vintage Classics Paperback Edition

Science and Belief

2009-08-12T11:31:00.041+01:00

I have just read, in the July 2009 edition of Scientific American, an article by Dr. Michael Shermer PhD.

In the article, entitled, I Want To Believe, Dr. Shermer describes the importance of the null hypothesis to scientific exploration; the notion that, in general, scientific claims are regarded as untrue until and unless they can be verified by means of controlled experiments validated by statistical analysis. However, he goes on to describe a class of such claims which, by their nature, cannot be tested in that way but instead rely for verification on "nuanced analyses of data and a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry that point to an unmistakable conclusion" Cosmology and archeology are given as examples of this type of study.

Later on in the article, Dr. Shermer refers to a question, the answer to which can probably not be ascertained by either approach, the question of what came before the Big Bang. In other words, what brought the universe into existence? He mentions the idea that the universe which we inhabit might have been proceeded by a multiverse which spawned daughter universes one of which was the one we inhabit but that there is no positive evidence for this conjecture. He then adds an intriguing comment to the effect that nor is there any positive evidence for the traditional answer to the question of the origin of the universe; that it was created by God.

I refer to this as intriguing because that remark would seem to compare the possibility of there having been a physical precursor to our universe with the possibility of there having been a metaphysical one, a case, to my mind, of comparing apples with elephants. The implied comparison is invalid.

I raise this matter because Dr. Shermer, who elsewhere describes himself as a skeptic, says that he has concluded that he is a skeptic "not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know." That seems to me to be both an honest and an honorable position. However, to speak about knowledge in respect to God is surely a misuse of the word. Theoretically at least, everything about the physical laws governing the universe is discoverable. However, we should not delude ourselves that any comparable process could uncover any knowledge about God.

I neither know that God exists nor do I know that God does not exist but I am sure that knowledge is not the issue in this context.

Dr. Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com) and the author of Why We Believe.

Why Pray

2009-06-07T08:59:00.081+01:00

A friend of mine, a theologian who spent his working life in India, was greatly impressed by the vivacity and diversity of religious life in the sub-continent. He studied the sacred works of all the major religions present there and found, once the trappings of ceremony and the gaudy accretions of popular belief were put to one side, a remarkable congruity of core belief.

The first five words of the Nicene Creed are; I believe in one God. When I was a small boy I somehow gained the impression that only Christians believed this but Jewish school fellows soon disabused me of that notion and later on I realised that what I had thought of as an exclusive club actually had three members because Muslims also believed in a single, all powerful deity.

Still, I thought, a club with only three members is not too bad and we three can still look down with pity upon those poor benighted souls whose belief systems include pantheons of gods and goddesses whose behaviour, as exemplified by that of the denizens of old Olympus, is often less than edifying.

But later on in life I looked into the several books written by my theological friend and saw there that the characters who provide the external appearance of polytheistic religions are merely aspects of a much deeper reality in which there is only one supreme Absolute. Jolted by this into further reading , I soon realised that the notion of a Supreme Creator is a common characteristic of almost all organised religions as well as of many individuals who profess a faith in God. Another common characteristic of those who believe in the existence of a Creator is a notion that it is desirable and possible to communicate with that being, hence the notion of prayer.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, asking God for something; relief from sickness, success in business, a happy death, a bountiful crop and so on is probably the most common form of prayer while the next most frequently used type is the praise prayer .

As a child I was urged by my spiritual mentors to pray; to tell God what I was thinking, to offer praises to God, to tell Him that I was sorry for having offended Him and to ask Him for things; mercy principally but also alleviation from sickness and pain for me and for others, always remembering though that God might not do as I asked because, in the long run, He knew what was best for me and for everyone else.

In my own case, when no relief came from my chronic asthma, for instance, I was adjured to 'offer my pain up to God as a sacrifice.' Naturally, as an aspirant son of Holy Mother Church I complied but by my tenth year I had begun to wonder whether it wasn't a bit odd; talking to someone who never answered, not even enigmatically. I'd read about the Oracle at Delphi by this time and thought that even a cryptic answer would have been better than nothing.

Now, as a young person, I could see the point of supplicatory prayers; I wanted something and thought that He might give it to me but praising seemed somehow unedifying. After all, God knew all about Himself and hardly needed me to remind him that he was great, good, loving etc. In any event, as I have argued elsewhere in this blog, God is beyond the ultimate event horizon and is consequently unknowable and the attributes that we ascribe to God are a reflection of our wishes rather than of His reality.

In the Don Camillo stories by Giovanni Guareschi, the eponymous priest talks directly to God via the figure of Christ on the cross over the altar of the parish church. And God, in the figure of Christ, not only replies but initiates conversations, particularly when He wants to make a point to the saintly but worldly Don Camillo. Their talk is natural and easy, Don Camillo does not bow and scrape although he does show a proper respect and reverence for his Lord. I have often wanted to be able to talk with God in that way, especially when I have been very worried about something, a seriously ill child, for instance but to no avail; God has never had anything to say to me. I have no way of knowing whether anyone else has ever received a conversational answer from God but I'd lay very long odds on its never having happened.

I am now in something of a bind. I am sure that praise of God is an absurd activity and pretty sure that petitions to God are never answered. And yet and yet, I have never been able to quite rid myself of the notion that my nowadays conversational asides to the God whom I cannot affect might, in some unknowable, celestial sense of the word, be being heard.
Whistling in the dark, perhaps?

The Mani

2009-06-04T16:58:00.011+01:00

I have just returned from Greece, or more precisely from a section of the the Peloponnese known as The Mani. It is a most beautiful land of high mountains, deep gorges, cyprus and olive groves, tower houses, tiny churches, of welcoming villagers and hardy fishermen who get their livelihood from the Gulf of Messinia, an inlet of the Ionian Sea.

I stayed with friends who have built themselves a house there. We explored high and low and ate and slept well. In fact for the first time in several years, I slept each night like a child.

Having gotten home, I bought a cookbook I had seen in Greece, in the house of the friends with whom I stayed. In the last couple of days, I've made various meze and cooked Chicken Baked With Yogurt (and many spices) and tonight I'm cooking Sesame-Crusted Roast Chicken (in tahini and caper sauce) I have not yet cooked fish in the Greek style nor yet had the opportunity to gut freshly caught red mullet as this chap is doing in a waterside taverna.

Oh, and I imported some superb olive oil from the press to which my friends take their olives at harvest time in November. Here are some of their trees.

Olivia's first year

2009-05-09T09:48:00.009+01:00

Archiving pictures,
I came across these images
Of Olivia, a grandchild

What I know and what I believe

2009-01-28T17:41:00.013Z

Know
Middle English, from Old English cnāwan; akin to Old High German bichnāan to recognize,
Latin gnoscere, noscere to come to know, Greek gignōskein
Date: before 12th century

Transitive verb:

To perceive directly, have direct cognition of.
To have understanding of.
To recognize the nature of.
To recognize as being the same as something previously known.
To be acquainted or familiar with.
To have experience of.
To be aware of the truth or factuality of.
To be convinced or certain of.
To have a practical understanding of.

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary

Believe
Middle English beleven, from Old English belēfan, akin to Old High German gilouben to believe
Date: before 12th century

Intransitive verb

To have a firm religious faith
To accept as true, genuine, or real
To have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
To hold an opinion
To consider to be true or honest
To accept the word or evidence of
To hold as an opinion

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary

A few of the things I know

How to use trigonometry to measure the height of a mountain.
That an organism denied nutriments and fluids will perish
That light from the Sun takes approximately 8.2 minutes to travel from the outer edge of the solar photosphere to the surface of the Earth.
That if, while swimming, I allow my lungs to fill with water, I will drown, unless I quickly eject the water.

We gain this type of knowledge either from textbooks or from experience but these examples and millions more like them have another characteristic; they are capable of independent verification by experiment.

Information about the universe may be divided into two broad categories, facts and theories. Facts have been verified by experiments that can be repeated. Theories remain just theories until and unless they are either verified or refuted by experiment. In principle, everything about the universe is discoverable by this method, although some theories may be doomed to remain unproven or unrefuted because experiments to test them are either prohibitively expensive or have apparently insurmountable technical difficulties attached to them. However, the material point is that every physical attribute of the universe, from the physics of the smallest sub-division of an atom to those of the largest aggregation of galaxies, is, in principle, discoverable by experiment.

A few of the things I believe

That the Baltimore Orioles baseball team will win the 2010 World Series, this in spite of the fact that the O’s haven’t won that competition since 1983.
That the next general election in Britain will be won by the incumbent administration, the Labour Party.
That the British monarchy will be abolished within twenty years, in other words no later than 2028
That there may be a God in whose ‘mind’ all that is resides.

It is obvious from these few examples that there is more than one kind of belief. Some, the first three of those listed, might be called reasonable expectations which will, with the passage of time, be seen to have been either right on target or seriously wide of it.

But the forth item is in a category containing only one example. Neither reason nor knowledge informs it. Belief in the existence of God is, in the strict sense of the word, irrational. Not that every philosopher has been content to leave it there. Anselm of Canterbury, Renee Descartes and others have striven to prove that God exists by means of long and complicated ontological arguments with, in some cases, elements of the Unmoved Mover argument attached. Aristotle , who may have invented that argument relied on it entirely in his attempt to prove the unprovable.

For my part, I believe that God may exist because I cannot honestly say that God does not exist but beyond that I cannot go. The God who may exist is as unknowable as the physics that produced the singularity from which the universe was born explosively. We have not the eyes to see beyond either horizon.

But I am sure of a few things about the God who may exist:
He has no attributes
He is neither in time nor space
He is unknowable

In the next chapter, I will demonstrate the truth of these assertions.

Chapter 2

Attribute
Middle English, from Latin attributus, past participle of attribuere to attribute, from ad + tribuere to bestow
Date: 14th century

Noun

An inherent characteristic
An accidental quality
An object closely associated with or belonging to a specific person, thing, or office
A word ascribing a quality to a person thing or object

Time
Middle English, from Old English tīma; akin to Old Norse tīmi time, Old English tīd
Date:
Before 12th century

Noun

The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues
The non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future

Space
Middle English, from Anglo-French espace, space, from Latin spatium area, room, interval of space or time
Date: 14th century

Noun

A period of time; also: its duration
A limited extent in one, two, or three dimensions: distance, area and volume.
An extent set apart or available
The distance from other people or things that a person needs in order to remain comfortable
A boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction

Unknowable
Date: 14th century

Adjective

Not knowable; especially: lying beyond the limits of human experience or understanding

All three definitions from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary

What are God's attributes?

Faced with this challenge, a Hindu might first ensure that the questioner was not referring to Shiva, Vishnu or Shakti or any member of the Hindu pantheon because they are are thought of as simply manifestations of Ultimate Reality, a concept about which nothing can be said. Hence the need for something more nearly human through which one might direct one's devotional feelings.

Faced with the same question, a Muslim might say that although God has revealed his will through the prophets, his nature remains unknowable, adding that when we speak, for example, about God being all-knowing and all-merciful, we are simply referring to what we believe has been revealed to us and not to anything actually known.

A Jew might reply that God cannot be divided into parts located in time or space and that therefore the notion that he has attributes is merely an imperfect attempt to understand the nature of the infinite. He or she might add that scriptural references to the Hand of God or to God's anger and so on are simply figures of speech used to make God's apparent actions comprehensible.

A Christian might also say that God is essentially unknowable, and that, therefore, any reference to attributes in respect of God must be seen as allegorical.

In stating what I understand to be the position of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus on this subject, I am, I believe reflecting the views of historical and contemporary scholars from each faith rather than those of the many adherents of these religions who hold and express other, less aesthetic views.

And it is that spirit that I ask the following two questions: when did God create the Universe and where did God create it?

When?
Current theories about the origin of the Universe put its age as between 13.5 and 14 billion years but when did its Creator act to create it?

The word, 'When' refers to time but as reported above, time is "the measured or measurable period during which an action or process or condition exists or continues" and "the non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from the past through the present to the future."

Where?
The word, 'Where,' refers to a boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction."

The verb to create, is thus seen to betoken an action performed in time and space but God exists outside of time or space. It follows that God did not create the Universe, it simply is in God.

Conclusion
We exist temporally and our existence is bounded by birth and death, God exists eternally and there are no boundaries to God's existence. Anything we say about God is an attempt to humanise God for our own purposes but has nothing to do with God. God is truly truly unknowable and beyond the limits of human experience or understanding.

Some Verses

2009-01-28T17:04:00.004Z

What Light

An outward sign
A presumption
A binding
An order
A way

Mock Morris

Suitably dull days
Mock the Spring
Mock new shoots
and plover's eggs
Mock guiless girls
and gummy men
Mock false hopes
and compass points
Mock all that is
and ever will be

To Be A Pilgrim

You need more than a badge or a staff
or a good stout pair of boots
or even the watery blessing
of Holy Mother Church.

You need the heart and lungs of a lion,
a couple of bracing thighs,
an ego the size of an armoured
train and a devil at your heels.

It takes more than prayer to follow
the Master on His way.
You’ll need quite as much iron in your
soul as devotion in your heart.

And a good dose of laughter will always
make the miles go whizzing
by. So, tell a few jokes and a tale or two
and keep your glasses full.

And when you get to the end of the march
and they stamp your passport up
don’t gawk like a bumpkin come to town
just rest; then get you Home

Characteristics of Pilgrims
Valiant – Constant – Funny – Hopeful

Umbra

When the Sun went out, my heart
fell out of my chest into my boots,
"Gone," I thought, "for good."
But the darkness wasn’t so bad.
Actually, it made me feel
rested, renewed;
is reborn too fanciful?
No; it’s just right!
"When is the next eclipse?"

Cross Over Jordan

Standing by a dark shore, a hot wind in my face
I asked, innocently enough, “What lights are those
Just there, right at the edge of this old sea?

“That’s Eden,” said my guide, “Remember Eden?”
And, while I gaped; added, “Where G-D walked”
“The Angel’s gone now, of course, and the Snake”

“And the Tree and the love, that’s altogether gone.”
“It’s all palms now and sand and soldiers, of course,
Who waste their lives waiting for Him or us or both

Magic and Music

Magikos (Greek)
The pretended Art of influencing the course of events by occult means

Mousike tekne (Greek)
The Art of combining sounds to create beauty of form

In the garden of the Almavivi
The Countess pretends
The Count pretends
And Figaro burns

In the garden of the Almavivi
The Countess hides
The Count rages
And Figaro laughs

In the garden of the Almavivi
The Countess forgives
The Count is humbled
And Figaro smiles

In the garden of the Almavivi
The good come to a
Good end, as do the bad
Comedy demands it

But

In the garden of the Almavivi
Hear the Countess sing:
“Piu docile io sono
E dico di si”*

And find

In the garden of the Almavivi
A subtle alchemy transforming
Through the power of love alone
Base nature into pure gold
A very unpretended magic

* I am kinder
I will say, yes!
Inspired by Act 1V of Le Nozze di Figaro

The Tuesday Angel

On the day before the stroke struck her,
A Tuesday, as it happens,
Helga met an
Angel.

On the day on which the stroke struck her,
She remembered the Angel
when she was
Unconscious,

On the day after which the stroke struck her,
She told me about the Angel
just as she fell
Asleep.

Der Dienstag Engel, she muttered
As she drifted away, a child again
Whispering to her Mutti or
Someone.

On the day after the day
After the day of that stroke,
Helga’s Angel vanished
As her memory
drained away
Entirely

We waited and wished him
Away, a spell that worked
For a deceiving while
But He waited too
and came
Again

Multi Purpose Compost

Multus
Purposer
Compositum
Latin
Old French
Latin
Many
Intended
Mixing

Mixed Intentions
Unintended
Consequences

Multiple purposes
Mixed
Compositions

Intentional mixes
Purposed
Multiplicity

Inspired by
Thalia (Thaleia) the "Flourishing"
The muse of comedy and of playful and idyllic poetry
Often seen with a comic mask and a crown of ivy and a crook.
By Apollo, Thalia had the Corybantes, priests who castrated themselves in identification with the goddess, Cybele
And a bag of Mole Valley garden compost

Ceramics

2009-01-27T23:12:00.000Z

Siebenburger Pottery
Brown & Blue

Siebenburger Pottery
This rare pottery comes from Transylvania in Rumania. It was made by ethnic Germans who once had a thriving community in that land.
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Transylvania was once part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1140 King Bela of Hungary invited ethnic German merchants and farmers to settle in the area. He gave the Germans generous property rights, tax exemptions and limited political autonomy in exchange for military service whenever the need arose.
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Eventually, the region came to be known by its German name, Siebenbürgen because the Germans founded seven fortress towns there in the 12th and 13th centuries.
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The Siebenbürger, prospered over the centuries under various rulers but the Second World War was calamitous for them. Many perished on the Eastern Front whilst many survivors became refugees at the end of the war*
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However, the refugee Siebenbürger community in Germany keeps the musical and artistic culture alive and this pottery is one aspect of that culture. The examples pictured are decorated with traditional designs and colours. The brown jugs are older and more rare than the blue examples.

Deruta Majolica

Deruta Majolica
Deruta, a town in Umbria in the heart of Italy; is known all over the world for its production of ceramics. For centuries its finest products have been bought by individuals for private use and by museum directors for their collections. The items shown here, examples of the Raffaellesco range, are from a private home.

Books

2009-01-27T22:18:00.001Z

Hitler's Uranium Club

The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall, annotated by Jeremy Bernstein
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In September 1939, some of the most important German nuclear physicists were called to a meeting in Berlin. This meeting saw the establishment of several research programmes set up to investigate the possibility of developing atomic weapons. The group called itself, the Uranium Club. As the war progressed, the research programmes got bogged down by various practical and theoretical problems which ultimately stalled the German atomic bomb programme.
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When the war in Europe was almost over, a joint Allied team of military and scientific personnel entered Germany and scooped up many of the German researchers including Werner Heisenberg, the leading theoretician of the Club. Shortly thereafter, ten of the scientists, including Heisenberg, were flown to England and incarcerated in a country house, Farm Hall, in Huntingdonshire. They were held there for exactly six months even though the war in Europe had ended before they arrived in England.
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During their stay at Farm Hall every word the scientists uttered was recorded and extracts of these tapes were sent to American and British Intelligence for analysis. The listeners were trying to establish how near the Germans had been to making atomic bombs. In due course, it was determined that their efforts had failed because of fundamental errors in the theories they had developed. But early on in the process, the listeners noticed that the Germans were developing another version of the story. Although they did not consult over it, they seem to have collectively produced a version that put their failure down to reluctance rather than inability. They implied that they had not wanted to equip Hitler with atomic weapons and so the programmes got no further. After the men were released, this story was embroidered to the point where the leading scientists appear to have convinced themselves that it was true.
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This book is a collection of the transcripts of those taped conversations. It makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in physics, in the history of nuclear warfare and in the psychology of those who provide the weapons. The annotations by Jeremy Bernstein are invaluable for non-specialists and experts alike. He writes lucidly about all of the issues and makes them very accessible. His 'pen portraits' of the ten men are especially revealing
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Hitler's Uranium Club is published by Copernicus Books

RIFLES

During the night of the 29th / 30th of March 1810, at Barba del Puerco, in the borderlands between Spain and Portugal, men of the 95th Rifles skirmished for the first time against seasoned troops of Napoleon's Peninsular forces. Although greatly outnumbered, the Rifles prevented the French from advancing and eventually helped to force their retreat. This first action set the tone. Through five more years of fighting, the Rifles distinguished themselves in action after action and, in the process, became an example to every succeeding generation of British soldiers.

In this wonderfully exhilarating book, Mark Urban, distinguished author, editor and military historian, recounts the exploits of the green-jacketed sharpshooters of the 95th in a campaign that took them from Iberia to Waterloo. Using personal testimonies as well as Army records, he describes the feelings as well as the actions of the soldiers and their sometimes inspired, sometimes awful officers; while his descriptions of the battles they fought are every bit as exciting as those of their fictional counterparts, the riflemen led by Bernard Cornwall's 'Sharpe.'
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Of course no military history of the period would be complete without a description of looting, of desertion and of worse crimes. Mark Urban supplies examples of all of these. Even so, in the end, I was left with an overwhelming sense of admiration for the prowess of these men and for their endurance in conditions that were literally quite dreadful for much of the time.
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As a chronicler and as a writer, Mark Urban is superb. I thoroughly recommend this book
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Rifles is published by Faber & Faber

English Passengers

In 1857 the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, developer of the Theory of Divine Refrigeration, mounts an expedition to find the Garden of Eden; believing it to be located, not in Arabia after all, but in the island of Tasmania. Finding it, he thinks, will finally nail shut the coffin of the atheistic adherents of geology.

But the ship Mr. Wilson charters is actually a Manx smuggling vessel whose Captain and crew agree to take their English passengers to Australia in order to escape the attentions of the British Customs whilst other important members of the expedition; a sinister racial theorist and a feckless ‘cold climate’ botanist have their own secret and non religious reasons for travelling to the other side of the world. Meanwhile, in Tasmania, the aboriginal people are being eradicated by a determined group of genocidal British colonists.

Out of this extraordinary mixture, Mathew Kneale has produced a story full of pathos, comedy and horror. If you like to be made to think and don’t mind having your emotions wrenched in at least two directions at once, read this book. But beware; you won’t be able to put it down once you start it, so take a week off work before you begin.
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English Passengers, published in paperback by Penguin Fiction was the Whitbread Book of the Year 2000.