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I am reading this as fast as I can (which I do not read O'Brian fast, for all love) and it has been such a comfort in the past 2 weeks. I think that it is my favorite POB, too.
On page 153 of the Norton paperback, Jack has just seen the First Lord who promised nothing, and is now stranded at the Admiralty, avoiding the bailiffs. He sees a convoy of hay-wains down the Hampstead Road, led by countrymen with long whips, and "From Jack's remote and ineffectual schooldays sprang a tag: O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, agricolas." He tells himself, "Come, that is pretty good. How I wish Stephen had been by, to hear it. However, I shall flash it out at him presently."
I can just guess at some of the words & wonder if it is from Virgil, but Dean King doesn't translate it and I wonder if this is another of Jack's mangled Latin phrases. So, all you scholars, flash it out at us, please.
~~ Linnea
Gary Brown, et al., have a page of "Patrick O'Brian's 'Foreign' Translated" at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3774/pob-tr.htm
which it yields:
O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, agricolas
O how extremely happy could farmers be, if only they would count their blessings [lit: understand their possessions]!
(L; Virgil, Georgics II)
Aubrey is bang on; quotes verbatim from Virgil's Georgics ii -- "Ah, blessed beyond all bliss the husbandmen, did they but know their happiness!"
DRM
--
____________________________________________
Donald R. Morris
E-Mail: drmorris@airmail.net
URL: www.tridentsyndicate.com
Tel & FAX: (713) 668-8665
(I sent something to this effect a while back but I think it bounced. Excuse any duplication.)
Has there been past Gunroom discussion about whether Scriven, with his tale of woe as an underpaid scribe, was a bit of joking self-reference by POB?
(Those wonderful Carl Barks duck comics that had Donald working for Scrooge at 22 cents a day weren't exactly being subtle about Walt Disney's wage scale.)
Also, are there any past Gunroom-generated speculative pictures of the Polycrest? POB's physical descriptions ("sliding keels," "cock hat shape," the shield-shaped aft cabin) are gems, but like Jane Austen's physical descriptions of her characters they leave much out as well. I don't even really understand the sliding keels, but the phrase has a delightful freak show sound.
-Jerry
Nice piece a long time ago by Todd Gitlin about Disney's corporate practise and the racist imperialist so forth undercurrent in entire Scrooge McDuck narrative trajectory, as we say in lit crit. Never clear quite how Scrooge came by his 'treasure', but it was always being tilted at by various swarthy bearded types from a vague disreputable and clearly not WASP background. all in all, from today's perspective, taint funny McGee. HRG MD ENDIT
One thing I missed the first time I read Post-Captain follows.
O'Brian often foreshadows events by animal episodes, which are followed by human events similar to the animal anecdotes.
On Page 18, Jack's horse thinks, "I smell a mare! A mare! Oh!" Its flaring nostrils quivered, and it stamped. Looking round Jack saw that there were newcomers in the field. A young woman . . .
And thus do we meet Diana, presaged by Jack's sexually-frustrated horse. O'Brian similarly uses another "horse" metaphor when he shows that Jack Aubrey, formerly a fine horseman, gets ingnominiously unseated when Diana shows up.
Very interesting observation! However; I don't think Jack was ever a *fine* horseman. POB states here (somewhere in describing the above incident) that Jack was never as good a horseman as he thought his having spent 2/3 of his life at sea.
Ray McP (getting WAY to picky)
Perhaps it might be better to say that Jack, previously confident in his horsemanship, was ignominiously unseated. . . .
I know the horse didn't think much of Jack's riding ("Sits too far forward. ...see if I don't have him off at the next fence. . .") As in so many minor instances, POB writes what he chooses to make a particular effect or impression. so we have the General critiicizing his son's horsemanship in SM (heavy hands), while in ROM Jack handily masters a bad-tempered mare, in TH he gets along beautifully with t he gorgeous Jasmina, and in TC(?) is getting along well with the oddly-named Abhorson before an unexpected shy lands him on his head.
I've often wondered why POB gave us this last incident; other than scaring the life out of the reader at the end of the chapter, the only effect is to keep Jack in bed or a while and give us a couple of amusing passages with Mrs. Williams and her friend (". . .left the room with discontented movements of her shoulders and buttocks").
Gerry Strey Madison, Wisconsin
Talk about 'scaring the life out of the reader' at the end of a chapter - possible spoiler coming up - what about leaving Stephen poisoned by the platypus at the end of a BOOK, for all love !!
E M Nokes
And what about where Stephen is ill from being bitten by a bat which he feared was *mad*? This is when he is on the Lively which is chasing the Spanish squadron?
Ray McP
Appropriately, this week is the 200th anniversary of the opening scene of Post Captain. The preliminary treaty and ceasefire was signed on October 1, 1801, and was reported in newspapers the following day. Although the final Peace of Amiens was not signed until March 1802, hostilities effectively ended the preceding October. For CSF fans, this is also the date that acting Commander Hornblower sailed into Portsmouth, returning from the West Indies. His promotion was not confirmed due to the severe reductions in the RN instituted by First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl St. Vincent. His expectations of a lasting peace were sadly off the mark, and war broke out again in May 1803. M&C concluded in the summer of 1801. PC begins two or three months later. The date of November 1802 in the newspaper advertising Mr. Savile's fox hunt is clearly an error. Possibly a well-meaning editor doing some fact-checking looked up the date for the Peace of Amiens, and confused the final treaty signing for the initial armistice.
The St. Valentine/Vincent ball hosted by Jack and Stephen was on Feb. 14, 1802. The developing relations with Sophie and Diana occurred throughout the summer of 1802. In the latter half of 1802, Jack is forced to flee his creditors. In May 1803, Jack and Stephen are in Toulon when war breaks out again.
POB took some liberties with the tenure of Earl St. Vincent, who was First Lord until May 1804. He brings Melville in a year earlier, to make more plausible Jack's appointment to the Polychrest. The following year, probably in May or June, Jack cuts out the Fanciulla. A letter at this time is dated Sept 20, 1804, but this is clearly contradicted by other events. Melville posts him, effective May 23, 1804 and Jack has temporary command of the Lively during the summer. At this time, Stephen is off spying in Spain, promising to return before Michaelmas (Sept. 29). He is back in England in very early autumn to receive Jack's letter dated Sept 12. On Oct 5, 1804, a British squadron of 4 frigates, including Lively, did capture the Spanish treasure fleet as described by POB.
Don Seltzer
Oh, what a valuable man! Such great information, Don. Thanks.
Nathan
I was struck reading this for the umpteenth time of the phrase used describing Stephen whilst he is leading the Bear-clothed Jack in the final dash to freedom, "an underlying hard ruthlessness" which appeared to contrast with the former Stephen of shabby appearance and a reticent nature. This crops up again several times, in Maturin's resolve under torture, his duelling nature and so forth.
As a reader who started early with the cannon, my answer to the lissun who couldn't understand how we originals could wait for the publication of sequels, my answer is: "we could, but it wasn't easy." All that kept me going was the fact that it would be forthcoming and all the more pleasurable for the wait.
Tony Davison
in KwaZulu-Natal
still waiting for some hoary old mariner to explain "gackling the
cable"
Tony Davison wrote
still waiting for some hoary old mariner to explain "gackling the cable"
Permit me to proffer
http://www.wwnorton.com/POB/vol3i.htm
'Tho be d*mned if Ashley, their Lordships, Wright, Candy and their ilk do
not remain mute.
Cattarh? (Jack, not their Lordships)
Query: why *not* gackle the cable? I don't recall the context, but it
smacks of not performing an operation which might prevent the cable from
being recovered or slipped easily and suggests that gackling could be a long-stay measure against chafe.
serving and parcelling with the lay whilst freshening the odd nip or
three..
John Germain
John has reminded us about these Norton newsletters from the last age. I
remember discovering them as I was innocently wandering along the strand,
before the Gunroom pressgang caught me up. I hadn't reread them in some
time
however, and found that O'Brian's description of his trip to the U.S. was
an
absolutely delightful, gracious, charming account. I would urge anyone to
'not lose a moment' on their way to read or reread the Newsletters and
thank
John heartily for the URL.
I found myself wondering if the answers to the questions (immediately below
the interview at the address above) were given by O'Brian himself. I
thought
the evasiveness of the 'gackle' answer quite his style.
(On rereading them, I find he must have written them, as he says "I found"
about the marthambles. And not in the OED? Gracious, should his usage of
it
be submitted to them for inclusion?)
Rowen
On page 462, Stephen reflects that:
"Ld Nelson said, once past Gibraltar, every man is a
bachelor."
DID Ld Nelson say that, or did POB make it up?
One feature I especially enjoyed in O'Brian's short
stories as well as his novels was his technique of
inserting fresh observations of the world into his tales.
Here is one of my very favorite pieces, about the way
the mind interprets fleeting sensations. In "Post
Captain," this one comes from page 470 of the Norton
paperback:
A foolish German had said that man thought in words. It
was totally false; a pernicious doctrine; the thought
flashed into being in a hundred simultaneous forms, with
a thousand associations, and the speaking mind selected
one, forming it grossly into the inadequate symbols of
words, inadequate because common to disparate situations
admitted to be inadequate for vast regions of
expression, since for them there were the parallel
languages of music and painting. Words were not called
for in many or indeed most forms of thought: Mozart
certainly thought in terms of music. He himself at this
moment was thinking in terms of scent. . . . Stephen
watched with no particular emotion but with extreme
accuracy. He had noted the great leap of his heart at
the first moment and the disorder in his breathing, and
he noted too that this had no effect upon his powers of
observation. He must in fact have been aware of her
presence from the first: it was her scent that was
running in his mind before the curtain fell; it was in
connection with her that he had reflected upon these
harps.
Do we know who the foolish German was? Would he be another entry in my
list of Germanic philosophers not to bother with?
Martin @ home:
Susan picked a great one to quote. I always found this one interesting
myself. First, I see he's right of course. Thought precedes words. Bounds
ahead to an understanding before language catches up. But then I consider
whether it is possible to grasp a thought fully until I succeed in reducing
it to words. Sometimes I only think I understand a notion, and find the
writing of it to be my first exposure to its deeper complexity. I imagine
this must be a common experience of teachers, but not solely ours.
Then on the next level, I realize POB was right in a deeper sense.
Something I reduce to words is not fully understood until I can write not
words, but equations, or the moral equivalent, with mathematical rigor.
Frozen thought. Just add contemplation and stir. Serves worlds.
At graduate school, the professor for whom I was one of two teaching
assistants used to lecture to the effect that you understand nothing until
you can program it. That is, until you can explain it to a complete
illiterate with pedantic insistence on consistency and no regard for
generalization.
The other teaching assistant, a fellow graduate student in the department,
was a Jesuit priest. As we walked the campus, with me often in my Air Force
uniform, we speculated whether observers thought us arguing the merits of
war or the warlike nature of missionary service -- when in fact the Robe
and
the Sword were debating how to explain Professor Robert Floyd's latest
lecture to the ultimate illiterate: the undergraduates in our teaching
sections.
I think O'Brian had the right of it: thought leaps into new territory,
flying without the dead anchor of words.
But after we catch a butterfly notion and wrap it with words, we find that
Floyd was right also. We don't understand the bones and bowels and
processes
of a notion until we can pin it to a blackboard with equations.
Gary W. Sims, Major, USAF(ret)
In a message Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 Susan Wenger wrote:
On Page 18, Jack's horse thinks, "I smell a mare! A mare!
Oh!" Its flaring nostrils quivered, and it stamped.
Looking round Jack saw that there were newcomers in the
field. A young woman . . .
And thus do we meet Diana, presaged by Jack's
sexually-frustrated horse.
O'Brian similarly uses another "horse" metaphor when he
shows that Jack Aubrey, formerly a fine horseman, gets
ingnominiously unseated when Diana shows up.
Ah but that is a horse of a different choler.
Paul
GROAN!!!!
Rowen, much appreciating that the list is back to 'normal'.
It's posts like this one that keep me glued to the list.
- Susan
Like Jack, I'm sitting here bemused with thoughts of Susan hoofing it --
something about keeping the pot boiling -- but nothing gels.
Gary W. Sims, Major, USAF(ret)
Today I considered for the first time that the first two books show a
sequence in their titles. This immediately suggested a couple of prequels -
"Midshipman" and "Lieutenant" - and a thought that if the pattern had been
followed there could have been just two further books in the cannon -
"Commodore" and "Admiral", for surely nobody could have been pedantic
enough
to write a volume about each step through the hierarchy of admirals.
Martin @ home:
Here's another "animal" anecdote: the first thing
Stephen says after Diane first appears on the scene is:
"There is that fox of theirs," remarked Stephen, in a
conversational tone. "There is that fox we hear so much
about. Though indeed it is a vixen, sure."
Deliberate foreshadowing of her character? No doubt in
MY mind.
Another such metaphor in PC is when Stephen is making one of his nocturnal
visits to Diana, and is examining the design of a sari. There is a
repeating pattern of an East India Company officer holding a bottle of
brandy and being attacked by a tiger. In the repeating pattern, the
expression of the officer appears to vary between happiness and agony.
Diana then offers Stephen a brandy.
Don Seltzer
As I logged on to write this, I realized that my note last night never left
home. Apparently my outbound server withdrew for a few hours to effect its
monthly ablutions. Pity I didn't know at the time. I could have gotten more
sleep, finished this morning, and added this last bit to the end. The bit
about why bin Laden and the al Qa'ed will fail.
We are not a monotonic culture. Not in the United States, and certainly not
in the larger meta-culture of the West. (Which spans the globe of course,
but names don't have to make geographic sense.) However, we are more
intensely portrayed than any culture in the past. You might think this
would
make our character -- our various characters -- more apparent than, say,
Rome in her day.
Consider Rome as perceived by a Germanic tribesman, a Palestinian, or one
of
my ancestors that caused Hadrian to build his wall to keep us out. Her
character was that of the her representatives. Rome was the local legate or
the bored centurion striding through the market -- arrogant in his
superiority. (Until he met g-g-g-g-g-grandpa of course
The West today and particularly the symbolic fountainhead of her evil --
the
United States -- are perceived as some appalling amalgam of Friends,
Frasier, and Dan Rather. Oh, and still the local legate and surly centurion
of course. Not to put too fine a point on it, "Who's afraid of the Big Bad
Chandler?" Or Ross, or Frasier, or Dan? Or even Joey, for that matter. And
when they killed a few hundred of our centurions in Beirut, all we did was
slink home. Very Frasier-like, was it not?
Fortunately, as a culture, we have as much resemblance to Dan Rather or
anything on television as Britain of the 16th century did to "A Midsummer
Night's Dream." It's entertaining to let them prance about the stage each
evening, and those who share the views seen on network television news are
comforted to believe the modern equivalent of "it must be true, or they
wouldn't let them print it." In this case, the notion that Peter and Dan
and
their ilk are reflecting or transmitting the views of a whole culture in
some sense. In a narrow sense, they are of course. Just as we can by
analysis of Shakespeare arrive at some perspective on England of his time.
But only in the narrowest sense. They represent one yardarm of that complex
net of canvas, rope, and timbers we inhabit.
We are a culture of accommodation. Some of us are comforted to call the
local psychiatry clinic "The Life Skills Center" and the rest of us allow
that without snorting too loudly in mixed company. Observed by a culture
like bin Laden's, one that does not tolerate disparate views, this leads
them astray. For sundry reasons (that boil down to self-sorting of people
choosing careers), certain views of the world tend to dominate in network
media and the entertainment fields. When we deal with people like bin
Laden,
this turns out to be useful -- much like Stephen being described to
Christy-Palliere by Jack on p 95 of the Norton paperback of Post Captain.
The scene opens with Christy-Palliere reviewing a file of death sentences,
remember. The file that is for names from F through L only. He describes
for
Jack a man clearly acting as an agent, an inimic observer -- but the naive
sincerity of Jack saves the day:
'Why,' cried Jack, 'that must certainly be Stephen Maturin. [....] He
mentioned some monstrous rare pippit or titmouse that lives here. [...] Oh
no, he is the simplest fellow in the world.' [..] he laughed, his big voice
full of intense amusement, 'to think of poor good old Stephen being laid by
the heels for a spy! Oh, ha, ha, ha!' [...] There was no possibility of
resisting his transparent good faith.
Through the lens of television, the West looks much like bumbling good old
Stephen. And the truth is close to Stephen as well. The truth is like a
later scene, on p134 of my paperback PC, when the woefully thin crew of the
Indiaman is trying to stand off a privateer with reasonable guns, but no
one
to work them properly. Jack is an unsurprising volunteer, but also:
No shot. That damned powder-boy had run. 'Shot! Shot!' he cried, and there
was the boy, waddling from the mainhatch with two heavy balls clasped in
his
arms -- a new boy, absurdly dressed in shore-going rig, new trousers, blue
jacket, pigtail in a ribbon. A fat boy. 'Take them from for'ard, you poxed
son of a whore,' said Jack into his mute, appalled face, snatching one and
thrusting it down the barrel. 'From for'ard, from number one. There's a
dozen there. At the double, at the double!' The second wad, rammed hard
into
the scorching gun. 'Run her up! Run her up!' [much straining at evolutions
planned for many more and larger men...] That damned boy was underfoot. He
picked him up, said kindly, 'Stand clear of the guns. You're a good boy --
a
plucked 'un. Just bring one at a time,' pointing to the forecastle, 'but
look alive. Then cartridge. Bear a hand. We must have cartridge.'
The fat boy, of course, was one of the misses Lamb. I do love that name,
especially in this context. Consider Captain Dumanoir of the privateer,
planning this assault with the aid of articles from The Indiaman
Independent
or perhaps a recent bio on the Lord Nelson Network News. Would he have
figured the misses Lamb among the combatants? Would they rate as
"effectives" in modern terminology? Hardly.
Nor would bin Laden have considered it likely that a planeful of sheep,
who've meekly surrendered their nail files, might be able to resist a
professional team of hijackers.
I insisted that hijackers professionally trained are not deterred by the
silliness of removing their carkeys, nail clippers, and so forth. And so
they are not. What will deter them is the ordinary mix of people found on
our aircraft. Just as a single air marshal cannot stop a team -- however
lacking in equipment they be -- a small team cannot control a large number
of people once they decide obedience is not in their long term interest. Or
that of their country. Frasier Crane would not rush a hijacker bearing a
box
knife that might cause a nasty boo-boo. Or perhaps threatening to strangle
another child. But knowing the larger intentions of the team, I would. And
so would many other men and women in our culture. Such people are not the
subject of approving stories on the Lord Nelson news, but they are not
unusual at all.
We are an accommodating culture, but not a passive one.
We have people in the most unexpected settings who will lend a hand to
carry
balls where needed. And cartridge too.
And I'm sure that no one really expects the tactics of 9-11 to work again.
The notion of hijacking a civil vessel that is, and using it for some
tactical end. Oh, they can kill a planeload of people of course -- but that
is merely a cruel braggadocio and it would look feeble after the thousands
killed at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The next attack must
look
more dramatic -- not less, because appearances are all they achieve in such
attacks. We are an enormously powerful civilization, despite our
accommodating ways, or actually because of them. And nothing less than an
army of many divisions could do anything to weaken our power. So they
strike
instead at our will. And that blow seems to have been badly misjudged.
Because they look at us through a very narrow and oddly colored lens. As
Stephen might have said, 'Thank you, Jack, for your naivete.' And Dan and
Peter and...
Gary W. Sims, Major, USAF(ret)
Hi, All! I have been thinking about how Diana is introduced to the story:
Swearing, vaguely reminiscent of a naval officer in her outfit, and so
forth. I know that Diana is supposed to be a foil for Sophie, that's plain.
To me it's almost as if Diana is one of the guys. She has more in common
with the male characters than the female, at least at her introduction. The
piratical air that makes her so attractive to naval fellows, the roughness
of language, the self assurance...I just find it interesting, that's all.
Karen von Bargen
In PC we're told that both Sophie and Diana are tall, but that Sophie is
taller. In my mind's eye, I somehow lost track of the latter note, and
alway pictured Diana as the taller of the two, and Sophie as a shorter
plumper (not fat) body type.
Barney
the difference is, as Stephen sees it, that Diana's
posture is so erect that she looks taller than she is.
Ray Mcp
The advantage of the written word is, of course, that the reader is allowed
to see any character in his/her mind's eye as he/she wishes.
That being said, I believe Sophie is taller than Diana and willowy (thin,
straight up and down, so to speak), whereas Diana is not much over 5 feet
tall and um... curvaceous - well, more curvy than Sophie. I think, though
am
not positive, Sophie is as tall as Stephen. How tall is that? None is as
tall as Jack (fortunately).
Alice
I don't have the page number, and it might have been in M&C, but, if
memory serves, I did read that Stephen was 5'8" tall.
J. Bennett
That's the measurement I had in mind for Stephen, which, if Sophie were the
same height, would make her a little taller than average for a woman.
Thanks, Jill -
Alice
And Marian responds, indignantly:
No way! Where are you getting this? Stephen was small, wiry, short. Five
foot eight isn't short
If Sophie were 5'8" tall, she would have been something of a giantess in
her
day and age, no? People are, on average, much larger these days than they
would have been during the time period when the canon is set. (Ever notice
how small the antique clothing, suits of armor, etc. displayed in museums
seem?) It's definitely time for a reread for me, because I've always
pictured Diana as taller (and shapelier) and Sophie as shorter and
rounder...like their names.
I think even for those of us who are familiar with New York City and the
area around the WTC, the whole thing is still difficult to comprehend...
This is the last time I open my e-mouth regarding a political issue...but
Dick T's comments were right on. -RD
The fascinating subject of heights has come up before. As to people being
shorter in the past, it would depend on a combination of genes and
nutrition.
Genes are a constant.
One would assume that the upper classes would be taller, if they were
better
fed than the general population, and I believe that that was the case.
What happened during the American occupation in Japan after WW II is well
documented.
Dried milk was introduced into the diet of Japanese schoolchildren, and the
average height of Japanese increased.
Within the last year or so there was an article in the press about an
English
researcher who has been evaluating bones from old English cemetaries since
WW II. It was reported that he found that the medieval skeletons were
generally well-nourished and that the heights were not much different from
those of people today. Also, their teeth were very good!
However, when he studied people who were part of the industrial revolution
and, presumably, worked in factories in the 19th century rather than in
farming, there was a great fall-off in height, presumably from bad
nutrition.
It was also reported that teeth began to show much more decay around
Elizabethan times, perhaps because of the increased use of sugar in the
diet.
If any English lissuns can elaborate on this man's studies, I would be
fascinated to hear about them!
Jean A.
On page 51 of my Norton hardback, SM to DV when discussing DV being
'provocative' and he reminds her that:
"Not all French waiters have red hair." and her reply:
"They all have red hair somewhere about them, and it shows sooner or
later."
This red hair thing is lost on my simple mind. Help.
Barney
Barney,
Pierre has red hair
Is this a valid argument? Ahhhh.....no. "Not all French waiters have red
hair."
SM is a straight up smarty pants.
However, DV has been around the block (and back). She has acquired carnel
knowledge. Many people throw smarty pants knowledge right out the window
once they cotton to carnel knowledge.
DV knows that French waiters have a little ole figurative red hair
somewhere--especially curly ones.
T.A.Stenning
'Has there been an abstract on the finances discussed in the cannon? We get
'many clues... references to a broad side costing an ordinary seaman's
annual wages; Mrs. Williams has 10,000 pounds for each of her daughters;
etc.etc. What was L10,000 (sorry the handheld doesn't do the pound sign)
worth in those days? What did a Capt. make a year... what did a household
cost to run?
Barney
This is a tribute to Jane Austen: "...she had so many thousands of pounds
as will always be called ten..."
Larry Finch
Barney,
According to
http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/poundq.php
it would be worth the following:
1. £326258.66 in the year 2000 has the same "purchase power" as £10000, s,
d in the year 1812.
Ain't inflation amazin' !
Peter (T)
I believe that 1 pound Sterling was equal to about 5 US dollars in those
days. But what was a dollar "worth" in comparison to today? Speaking in
terms of inflation, I think you would not be far off if you used a factor
of
about 20-to-1; in other words, a dollar two hundred years ago would be the
same as roughly 20 dollars today (or 1 pound then would be about the same
as
100 US dollars today).
A post-captain's pay varied according to what class of vessel he commanded,
but if we were to look at the pay of the commander of a typical frigate (a
Fifth Rate), this would be 16 pounds 16 shillings per month (a lunar
month).
Using the rule of thumb I proposed above, this would be around an
equivalent
of 22,000 US dollars today. This sounds a mite low, but I think the
reality
is that today we have a lot more things to spend money on than they did in
1813.
Bruce Trinque
Assay:
http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/poundq.php
John Germain
Someone correct me! Using the site below gives:
L10000 in 1813 = L318,453.43 in 2000
Using this site to convert to American dollars:
http://www.xe.net/cgi-bin/convert.new
L318,453.43 in 2001 = $472, 616.74
Which is a ton o' cash in any business today.
On p358 Goodridge 'held out an odd-shaped volume with long strips of the
coast seem from the offing, half a dozen to a page.' Is this a reference
to an actual volume in common use in the RN at the time?
Barney
Masters would either prepare their oen or acquire books of drawings of
how the coastline would appear from a ship making a landfall. This would
be to help them more quickly find their location and any offshore
hazards. Explorers of new lands would make such drawings and publish
them as part of their reports. So Goodridge's volume could be a standard
one of the Channel coast or it could be one he made up himself.
Adam Quinan
'Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been'
--- Adam Quinan Masters would either prepare their oen or acquire
books of drawings of
how the coastline would appear from a ship making a
landfall. This would
be to help them more quickly find their location and
any offshore
hazards.[snip]
Some years ago I acquired the CGS chart of Baja
California for an imaginary cruise. In several places
on the chart, there are little engravings of how the
local coast and offshore rocks look. In particular,
there is an isolated hazard called "Alijos Rocks" that
is well drawn and would be easy to recognize from a
masthead.
In a couple of places - Scammon's Lagoon and Bahia
Magdalena you can see where the surveyor sailed across
the bay taking soundings in a thin line (like Jack
Aubrey's practice rather than at random as on a deep
sea chart.
Jim (experiencing a memory flush this morning)
James McPherson
A few years ago a research library had to throw out many books (they sold
them for about $1/volume). I managed to obtain 1947 Sailing Directions for
maybe a quarter of the world. A good part of these were drawings of how
the coastline would appear from a ship making a landfall.
I think including the landfall drawings for some of all of the listed
sites in POB and CSF would be an interesting web project.
I think that the Sailing Directions I have are not copyrighted (gov
publication) and are probably fairly similar to what would have been seen
a couple of hundred years ago (for most sites).
Does anyone have access to more or older Sailing Directions?
Would this be a worthwhile project?
Thank you.
Greg Edwards (wondering where he put those directions)
barneysimon.geo@YAHOO.COM 10/06/01 12:37PM wrote:
On page 51 of my Norton hardback, SM to DV when discussing DV being
'provocative' and he reminds her that:
This red hair thing is lost on my simple mind. Help.
Barney
Isn't red hair assciated with evil? Judas Iscariot traditionally
was depicted as red haired; was not also the devil?
Gerry Strey
In a message dated 10/6/01 17:28:46, barneysimon.geo@YAHOO.COM writes:
In PC we're told that both Sophie and Diana are tall, but that Sophie is
taller. In my mind's eye, I somehow lost track of the latter note, and
always pictured Diana as the taller of the two, and Sophie as a shorter
plumper
(not fat) body type.
and> >In a message dated 10-6-01 6:53:55 PM, Ladyshrike@AOL.COM writes:
The advantage of the written word is, of course, that the reader is allowed
to see any character in his/her mind's eye as he/she wishes.
That being said, I believe Sophie is taller than Diana and willowy (thin,
straight up and down, so to speak), whereas Diana is not much over 5 feet
tall and um... curvaceous - well, more curvy than Sophie. I think, though
am
not positive, Sophie is as tall as Stephen. How tall is that? None is as
tall as Jack (fortunately).
Alice
Anyone who's seen the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice: The two sisters
in
it are quite Sophie-Diana like, IMHO. Jane, the older one, isn't as pretty
to
me, but obviously represents the contemporary British ideal - taller,
paler,
thinner, sharper features. Elizabeth isn't considered as pretty, but has
more 'life' in her and is darker, rounder (not fat) and 'softer'.
Rowen
Once again, POB cannot decide if SM is a sailor or not. On page 173 with
JA and DV looking at Lady Keith's new picture, JA says 'She will never
stay, not with those unhandy lateens, and there is no room to wear; so
there she is on a lee-shore. Poor fellows. I am afraid there is no hope
for them." and DV replies: "That is exactly what Maturin told me you would
say"
For all love, in 95% of the canon, SM doesn't understand any of the sea
terms in that sentence!
Barney
Ah, a favorite theme for discussion among lissuns! And I'm anxious to hear
other views.
I think the last consensus of opinion was that Stephen's knowledge of
nautical terms was more than he let on (he was rather a quick study - "a
deep
old file" and "great cognoscento"), but he lets Jack and his fellow
shipmates
think he knows little. Just as Jack lets Stephen think he is without much
talent on his violin. However, knowing nautical terms is not the same as
knowing what they mean.
And is it possible that Diana was making a joke?
Actually, my take on that particular passage was that Diana was subtlely
letting Jack know that Stephen had seen the picture (e.g. had been with her
there at Lady Keith's) and was inspiring rivalry between them. Jack knows,
and we know, and Diana *should* know that Stephen doesn't know diddly about
lateens and wearing and lee shores, so Jack's next line should have been
"How
is it that Stephen has seen this painting?" or some such, but no, he does
not
take the bait, and instead, says,
"Well, a man don't have be a Nostradamus to tell what a sailor would
say..."
(neatly skirting the issue), and 'his good humour returning... "For my part
I
know nothing about painting at all." '
A very complicated exchange, this - many double meanings and hidden
agendas.
Alice
Believe what DV meant by "That is exactly what SM said you would say
(when you saw the painting) " is "SM said you would immediately analyze
the situation and predict what is going to happen," i.e., that JA always
inspected nautical paintings and immediately commented on the situation
and what was about to transpire.
Donald R. Morris
In a message dated 10/7/01 7:26:00 AM Central Daylight Time,
Ladyshrike@AOL.COM writes:
DV replies: "That is exactly what Maturin told me you would say"
I would imagine, were this real life (what, you say, isn't it?), that
Maturin
had told DV that Jack would consider only the technical aspects of the
scene,
not the artistic ones; without any use on Maturin's part of the actual
technical terms.
For intelligence, there is nothing like a keen-witted, handsome woman, [DI
2]
Mary S
Hi, All!
My impression of this interchange is that Stephen had mentioned to Diana
the generalities of what Jack would say: Being a sailor Jack would dissect
the picture in nautical terms. I never really thought that Stephen
mentioned specifics.
I do think that Stephen knew much more than he let on. That was sort of
his profession to have that sort of personality. After all, he had been
going back and forth from Catalonia, Ireland, etc. for a long time before
he met up with Jack. As a kid he must have picked up on something. It was
probably just easier to play ignorant, let the others feel superior in some
harmless way.
On the other hand, he was terrible at getting aboard a ship. He had
other abilities in the physical line (good shot, etc.) but seemed to be
terribly distractable when trying the crawl up the side.
Just my two bits!
Karen
In a message dated 10/7/01 18:18:02, stephen_maturin@REBELSPY.NET writes:
He had other abilities in the physical line (good shot, etc.) but
seemed
to be terribly distractable when trying the crawl up the side.
OK, everyone, 'fess up! How many of us have tried to crawl up the side?
I did a similar exercise this year, climbing down a ladder (attached to a
rock wall face 100 feet high) backwards onto a launch, moving up and down
in
the waves. Distractable? Fear factor? Pah! Scared out 'o me wits, was
what it was!
Alice
This invites a question.
For all love's sake... WHY ???
(The descent, negative fear..)
John Germain
To get off the bloody island.
Alice
Oh, Alice!
The worst thing you can do is fall in and get wet! Maybe a little
squashed if the dinghy and the boat/ship/cliff are going at different
angles...I have gone up the sides of various small to medium boats (just
stand on the 3" wide rub rail, get your leg up over your head, heft
yourself over the rail, etc. while the owner of the boat disappears into
the hold hunting out an albacore for you and you get stuck with your leg up
there on the rail, daughter safely aboard and snickering at you and your
troubles, all strength having left your arms and legs while the 50 foot
boat is slowly drifting back towards the dock to crush your ankle) and have
never had that much trouble. The only thing I can think is Stephen had been
up and down any number of times. I can't understand why he simply couldn't
manage it. He had practiced, after all, maybe never consciously, but he had
experience. You never hear of dreadful tribulations getting into the line
of boats being towed behind so Stephen could
spend his time doing his own thing. It was something he _wanted_ to
do. Maybe that's what it is.
But when we lived aboard, I definitely made a concerted effort getting
on to our medium-ish boat on Sundays. That was the night when everyone in
the harbor waited to dump their "black water" tanks and it turned the
harbor into a sewer. Not the night to miss the steps and take a dip. Yuck.
Not to belittle your experience being scared, mind. I have never
descended a ladder as you describe and gotten into a dinghy at the bottom.
I think I would have flung myself at the dinghy after having issued an
appropriate warning.
Karen von Bargen
In a message dated 10/8/01 14:46:51, germainsjy@LOCALDIAL.COM writes:
This invites a question.
For all love's sake... WHY ???
and From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
To get off the bloody island.
I do love a competent, practical woman. A man would have explored his soul
in three paragraphs to answer that question. It's entirely unfair. Alice
and
her sisters get the beauty and the competence, and we get... (I'm thinking
here...) the romantic soul.
Gary W. Sims, Major, USAF(ret)
Now, Gary, that's not fair. You know you're beautiful and competent.
Alice
Rosemary Davis wrote:
If Sophie were 5'8" tall, she would have been
something of a giantess in
her day and age, no? People are, on average, much
larger these days than
they would have been during the time period when the
canon is set.
In both the Victoria and Albert and Smithsonian
museums there are wonderful displays of antique
(?)clothing, some of which cover the period of the
canon. People were very small compared to us. I
would estimate their size to be 2 for women.
Stephen's 5'6" would be far closer to normal for the
time.
Ray McP
Okay, what was a wafered letter? and as opposed to what, a sealed letter? a
penny post letter?
Barney
One definition of wafer is:
Thoughts??
Alice
I'm not positive on this, but I think wafers were pre-gummed and stuck
on, rather like sealing a letter with a stamp. A sealed letter used
sealing wax and a seal.
I've always liked using sealing wax, but the post office machinery does
not appreciate it, and off goes the wax.
Ginger
A wafer was a paper seal applied over the folded letter (I don't think
envelopes were in common use). As it was glued paper and not sealing wax
with a persnal impression, it was perhaps a bit less secure. The penny
post didn't come in until the 1830s I believe.
Adam Quinan
'Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been'
There is well-documented anecdote regarding Lord Nelson at the Battle of
Copenhagen. At the height of the battle, Nelson wrote an ultimatum to the
Crown Prince, and sent a sailor off to fetch a candle and sealing wax. The
sailor's head was taken off by a round shot and Nelson sent another to
fetch the wax. An aide's suggestion that Nelson simply use the less formal
and more convenient wafer seals that were at hand was rejected.
Nelson later explained to Colonel Stewart that the use of the wafer would
have suggested that "the letter was sent off in a hurry; and that we had
some very pressing reasons for being in a hurry. The wax told no tales."
Don Seltzer
On p11, there is the passage:
Then on page 60, "Steven walked into the Admiralty, gave his name to the
porter, and was shown straight past the notorious waiting room."
First, I do not think that we actually found out who this man in black was,
but was he the one who got SM into the spy business? Was he already in
place or just expected by the meeting on page 60-61? Page 60 SM says that
he really should NOT come in the front door, that seems to be what I would
think of as an early observation, but, on p.61, the comment "Dr. Maturin
was the Admiralty's most esteemed adviser." indicates a longer history.
Barney
Barney wrote:
In PC we're told that both Sophie and Diana are tall, but that
Sophie is taller. In my mind's eye, I somehow lost track of the
latter note, and alway pictured Diana as the taller of the two, and
Sophie as a shorter plumper (not fat) body type.
Barney
I've always pictured Sophie as taller, but Diana as wearing "say
something" hats.
Amanda Dunham
"You mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No?
Well, many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese -- toasted, mostly
-- and woke up again and here I were."
PC, page 24, Norton paperback...
Well done, sir, thank you for finding that. Don'cha just LOVE facts for an
argument!
Rowen
Here's an excellent (though very long) analysis of Post Captain from 1999
from lissun Michael Mayer, copied from the archives.
John Finneran,
Michael Mayer (mayer@GEI.NET.AU)
The course of true love never did run smooth, as my mother once comforted me
with, when I was in the middle of a messy do or die romance with my first
great love. She was not quite the right thing in my parents eyes. Some years
later they were much happier (and so am I) with the wonderful love of my
life. But it begs the question. What attracts us to others of the opposite
sex? Do we make good choices for marriage? Or, as I once read, "Do the bumps
on his head match the holes in hers," written by someone lamenting the
continuing poor choices that some people make in their relationships. It was
implied that subconscious needs or wrong self-beliefs drive people to chose
those who will pander to those needs or beliefs, but not bring healing and
wholeness. So reflect on your own experiences, those of people you know, and
join me as I humbly present for the Gunroom's enjoyment a beginning analysis
of the course of true love in Post Captain. Which this is Part 1, of a not
yet established number of parts.
Chapter 1. In which we meet the characters.
Blessed peace, but no prospect of naval advancement, or even employment.
Lucky Jack Aubrey, handsome, with 11,000 pounds of prize money has taken a
house with his particular friend, Stephen Maturin. Jack loves the hunt, is a
better horseman in his mind than in the field. Full of life, and looking to
enjoy it to the full. Desperately wants to be made Post. Admiral Haddock
describes him to the neighbouring Mrs Williams and her unmarried bevy -
ranting dog of a Tory; not quite the thing; lack of discipline; does not
attend the 5th commandment, an unlucky man because no chance of promotion
now. The Admiral is quite prophetic.
Stephen is a rum looking cove, sprawled on a mule when any Englishman is on
a horse. A natural son. Foreign. Cuts up a horse in the drawing room. A
share of prize money, but doesn't flash it around.
Diana - 27; superb horsewoman; black hair; blue eyes; ram-you-damn-you air;
worldly; widow from India; straight backed; good looking; passionate; strong
willed; excites lust in males of any age and station. Only 50 pounds a
year, so forced to languish in the provincial protection of her Aunt, Mrs W.
Sophia - 27; taller than Diana but not as straight; willowy languorous
perfection of movement; grey eyes; fair hair; ethereal; capable of an
unexpected sharp remark indicating more intelligence and reflection than
suspected; underlying strength; strong sense of duty; wonderful complexion;
10,000 pounds. Biological clock slowly ticking. Mother from hell.
Chapter 2 In which romantic connections are tenuously started.
Mrs W has decided that Jack is very much the thing for Sophia. Jack is not
opposed, nor Sophia, but she will not be rushed. Jack is very taken with her
light, ethereal, tenuous playing of Hummel's D major Adagio, whereas Stephen
is jarred. Not the first time they have disagreed on music. Diana's playing
is inaccurate, strong, fierce, free, and much more to Stephen's taste. Mrs W
does not see the men eye Diana on her horse at the hunts, or she would have
packed her off much earlier. Sophie has no heart for it but Jack gallantly
partners her, even if it means leaving the fox.
Stephen is the surprise. Suddenly he is well dressed, shaved and with a new
wig. He would not do for any of Mrs W's daughters, being a penniless papist,
but she is happy to have him visit Diana.
Then the ball. The naval eyes approve of Diana's piratical dash and
openness, but they are moonstruck by Sophia's grace. In the orangery,
Stephen at least is using her first name, rather than the more cool Villiers
and Maturin. Here comes the conversation where Diana reveals much of her
thoughts and her character to Stephen. She abhors married men as the worst
enemies a woman could have. All they want from her is.. Then men in general
receive a broadside from her, as she bemoans her fate, trapped in rustic
hell under Mrs W. "There is no friendship in men.I speak openly to you
because I like you. very much, and I believe you have a kindness for me -
you are almost the only man I have met in England I can treat as a friend -
trust as a friend."
Stephen, who wants to be much more than a friend, retreats, and gently
chides her that she has deliberately set out to look desirable, "the bosom
of that dress would inflame St Anthony" and is setting out to provoke men,
and then complain when it succeeds.
But Stephen's gentleness will not win his cause tonight. In fact, he must
suppress his deepest feelings even more, if he is going to succeed in wooing
Diana. She is grateful to be able to have an intelligent conversation with
him, after all the female mamby-pamby she must constantly endure. When
Stephen suggests Sophia as an intelligent companion, it turns out that Diana
resents her fortune, and bemoans life as unjust. "The only thing a man can
offer a woman is marriage. An equal marriage. I have about 4 or 5 years, and
if I cannot find a husband by then, I shall.And where can one be found in
this howling wilderness? Do I disgust you very much? I mean to put you off,
you know."
So he gets Diana the hunter to describe her quarry. He must have some money
and some sense. No deformities, or ancient. Should like him to sit a horse
and not fall off (she has probably only seen Stephen on a mule) and be able
to hold his wine.
Stephen leads her to discuss Jack and Sophia. Sophia is scared of the
physical aspects of marriage (men have hair on their chests), and will not
be manipulated. But Jack will need someone more alive - they would never be
happy. In fact, Sophia would be better for Stephen, if he could stand her
ignorance. Which would leave Jack for Diana, if he were less of a huge boy,
and more of a reading man, more like Stephen. But he is handsome, and she
thinks Jack also regards her as suitable. And then she confides that if she
were in London, she would be tempted to play the fool sexually. Stephen then
tells her that because of the way Molly Harte treated Jack, he is very
disposed to virginal modesty, rectitude and principle, rather than his
normal taste of dash, style and courage.
Finally, Stephen has had enough, and tells Diana that, unlike her, he is
averse to giving pain. He has reverted to calling her Villiers, she has
never called him Stephen as she unburdens herself and explores the options.
She kisses him and apologises if she has hurt him.
If.. Diana has a fair idea of how she effects men, but she is so full of her
unhappiness and her needs, that she won't have realised that under Stephen's
willingness to pursue these very sensitive topics coolly lies deep needs
that he wants her to meet. Of course she has hurt him, because she refuses
to acknowledge him as a serious suitor.
So Jack and Sophie are in a whirl about each other, trying to work out their
feelings. Stephen has achieved intimacy with Diana, but it has cost him
dearly, as the relationship will continue to do.
End of the first posting.
Michael Mayer
Michael Mayer (mayer@GEI.NET.AU)
Which it's Posting 2 of The Course of True Love. (Beware Post Captain
spoilers)
A humble analysis for the enjoyment of the Gunroom, by Michael Mayer
Chapter 3 In which it all goes badly awry
We start off glimpsing Stephen's diary. He describes his heart as under the
harrow. Not a pleasant image if it means the harrows that break up the
clumps left by ploughing. After an incident in his past, he had sworn to
allow no such dolorous emotion again, but he is helpless. But Diana is
making a play for Jack, who is totally frustrated by Sophia's hesitation.
Diana insists that Stephen keep inviting her over for billiards. He is
amazed to find that he puts up with her bullying. But deep down he persuades
himself Diana is not totally cynical, and so justifies his obsession. And
now, for the first time in their friendship, there is a painful reserve
between Jack and Stephen.
Then the financial disaster - Jack's prize agent has fled, his two neutrals
were overturned, and he must pay back 11,000 pounds. Jack will go to the
Admiralty to beg for any command, but first he rides with Sophia, begs to
call her Sophie, and tells her part of his troubles. She earnestly wishes
him well. He needs it, because he mishandles his interview with the First
Lord, is told he is a fool, and advised that marriage is death to a
sea-officer's career.
Mrs W has dragged the story out of Sophie, and reacts instantly by taking
her girls to the safety of Bath. Sophie just has time to see Stephen and
tell him that she does not go willingly. But Diana is left behind. Stephen
grieves that another week had not been allowed Jack, because he and Sophie
would have reached an understanding.
Destitute, Jack and Stephen are now social lepers, only Diana and the parson
's family entertaining them. And Stephen sneaks away from Jack to visit
Diana at nights, but will not directly tell Jack about his feelings for her,
or even that he goes to see her. She treats him disdainfully, but still
welcomes his visits. "If you think that just because I have let you kiss me
once or twice.that you are my lover and I am your mistress, you are wrong. I
have never been your mistress." Diana needs his friendship and concern. She
doesn't want him to develop any feelings of ownership over her.
Jack visits Lady Keith in Bath, and manages two conversations with Sophie,
which reduces his torment slightly. But Diana is also pursuing Jack, and
Stephen is determined to break his own relationship with her as he writes in
his diary. He struggles as he sees things about her that he is dismayed at -
hardness, desire to rule, jealousy, pride, vanity, bad faith, inconstancy.
Her style and grace can't cover these over for him. Jack is no longer
eligible as a husband for Diana, because he is broke. He can't understand
her behaviour and what drives it - hatred of Sophie and Mrs W, revenge? In
modern parlance Diana is 'acting out' her feelings and her unresolved needs.
Stephen brings the mail to Jack, as they watch the cock-fighting. Jack being
Jack, places 5 guineas on a loser, merely because he liked its gait and
swagger. The letter is from Queenie - Sophie is to be married to a well
landed gentleman. Stephen in vain tries to tell him it is merely Mrs W. who
has accepted the proposal, not Sophie. Jack is angry at what he thinks is
Sophie's inconstancy, after her sweet words to him in Bath. One part of his
mind has shut out Sophie, and he now feels justified in a liaison with
Diana. Stephen does not know this. He walks later that night to see Diana,
initially wanting to break up, but as he gets closer, just wanting to be
with her, until he sees his own horse, ridden by Jack, at the house. He
stumbles home in despair.
At breakfast he tells Jack he must leave. Jack is aghast, and suddenly
focuses on Stephen, as he hasn't for weeks. He still does not know how his
friend is hurting, and will never be told. There is only the hint as Stephen
labels his malady solis deprivatio. Jack does not understand that Stephen's
sun is Diana, and that Jack has taken her away (really, she has taken
herself away). Then Jack mentions the note he has for Stephen from Diana,
and how much she thinks of him. The note is a sort of apology and an
invitation for that evening. Stephen does not leave that day.
But he does tell her that he will go next week, that she has misused him,
and that he wanted to say he was breaking with her, but couldn't. "Break? Oh
dear, that is a word we (emphasised) must never use." He replies, "Never."
She needs him, and she reminds him that Jack needs him, and Stephen is again
bound up.
But she stills sees Jack, who pretends to Stephen that he isn't seeing her.
Stephen is up to 400 drops of laudanum a night. He wonders idly if she is
demon possessed, the way she charms him, and then is cruel.
(Why is it that he can't break with her? Why does he put up with her
horrible behaviour to him? What does he see in her that is lacking in him,
and that he needs so badly?)
Then the Sheriff's officers come, and Stephen can immediately slip into his
role of competent rescuer (much more to his liking than hurt, ineffectual
lover). He meets cold, angry resentment, when he finds them, but outlines
his plan. No fond farewells from Diana for Jack, "Ride on, Aubrey." But she
begs a goodbye from Stephen, who tearfully replies, "Will you not let me go,
Diana?"
"No, no, no.you must not leave me - go to France - but write to me.and come
back."
As they ride, Jack reads the letter from the morning mail. It is from
Sophie, direct to Jack, telling him that there was no truth in the rumour of
her engagement. And then very kind regards to Stephen, and she would be
happy to see him in Bath. "Christ, Stephen, I have never been so down.
Fortune gone, career too, maybe, and now this." (What is this? Does he think
Sophie is after Stephen? The answer is revealed in the next chapter)
They ship out on the Amythest, and Jack immediately revives, free from all
the complications of land life. But Diana's farewell has ensnared Stephen
again.
Chapter 4 Warlike Peace in Toulon.
A little French dinner with Christy-Palliere (4 sorts of wine, 2 brandies).
On the next bottle, Jack pours out his troubles about Sophie, how he had
almost clinched it, but then, in Bath, there was a slight misunderstanding
about Jack's attentions to Diana. Palliere probes, "Innocent intentions?"
Jack relates how Diana was kind, and sympathetic and beautiful so that Jack
had.But then she had pulled him up, and he wondered if she really was
attached to Stephen, and Stephen to her, but he was hooked on her, and had
committed himself pretty far. And then Jack described how Sophie's letter
had arrived and what it contained. Palliere thinks everything is fine, a
letter like that is an avowal. What more could he ask?
"Why," said Jack, with so wretched a look that C-Palliere, who had hitherto
thought him a muff to mind having two young women at once, felt a wound in
his heart."Why, there is this other one, don't you see? In honour I am
pretty well committed to her, although it is not the same sort of feeling at
all. To say nothing of my friend."
So Jack does have a good idea that Stephen wants Diana. He could ask
straight out, and the novel would be 200 pages shorter, but that can't
happen.
Meanwhile Stephen is reflecting with Dr Ramis, who finds him cadaverous,
with ill breath, sparse hair, belching frequently, hollow dim eyes, to say
nothing of tobacco and laudanum use. Hardly a picture of good physical
health, or a model of good mental health, when it comes to coping with fears
and worries.
War is about to be declared, and the bear suit adventure starts. Jack
discovers that there are whole new qualities to his friend that he never
knew, and jack is out of his depth. And our cadaverous Stephen is tough
enough physically to hump a 50 lb pack for weeks.
Excursus.
Devil" Chapter 20.
(I came across this recently when I reread the book after an absence of 6
years. The letters are to a junior devil who has the job of looking after a
young man, and making sure he goes down, eternally. Here the discussion is
how to mess up the young man's romance with a fine Christian woman.)
"You will find, if you look carefully into any human's heart, that he is
haunted by at least two imaginary women - a terrestrial and an infernal
Venus, and that his desire differs qualitatively according to its object.
There is one type for which his desire is such as to be naturally amenable
to the Enemy - readily mixed with charity, readily obedient to marriage,
coloured all through with that golden light of reverence and naturalness
which we detest; there is another type which he desires brutally, and
desires to desire brutally, a type best used to draw him away from marriage
altogether but which, even within marriage, he would tend to treat as a
slave, an idol, an accomplice. His love for the first might involve what the
Enemy calls evil, but only accidentally; the man would wish that she was not
someone else's wife and be sorry that he could not love her lawfully. But in
the second type, the felt evil is what he wants; it is that "tang" in the
flavour which he is after..The real use of the infernal Venus is, no doubt,
as prostitute or mistress."
Interesting comments from CS Lewis. Using his model, Jack desires Diana for
the wrong reasons, and it is quite different from his awe (in spite of his
comments about 'mincing filly') for Sophie. Diana excites lust in him,
Sophie respect. Whereas Diana does not excite mere lust in Stephen, but a
genuine self-giving love. And following on from CS Lewis' final comment,
Diana does end up as a mistress in later chapters.
Michael Mayer
Michael Mayer (mayer@GEI.NET.AU)
Which it's Posting 3 of The Course of True Love. (Beware Post Captain
spoilers)
A humble analysis for the enjoyment of the Gunroom, by Michael Mayer
Chapter 5 Adventures with the Bellone, last minute rescue
No bearing on the romances, except for two sentences as Jack is hastily
preparing the guns of the Indiaman, the Lord Nelson, before the Bellone
attacks.
'He found that what he was whistling under his breath was the adagio from
Hummel's piece - Sophie's inept playing of it - Diana's rough splendid
dash - a jet of intense feeling for Sophia - loving, protective - a clear
image of her on the steps of that house. Some fool, Stephen of all people,
had said you could not be both busy and unhappy, sad.'
Chapter 6 London, In which both suffer from Diana's unkindness
Jack waits on Lord Melville's remote possibility of something that floats,
Miss Lamb's letter has put the debtor very much in the public eye. They
stay in the cottage on Hampstead Heath. Their friendship survives their
grave differences in domestic behaviour. While Stephen screws a german flute
together (what is a german flute?) Jack unconsciously plays the Hummel
adagio on the piano. Stephen is at his acerbic best: Jack is playing like a
16 stone girl, playing like Sophia, but this is not sentimental, he is
suffering extremely. Stephen's thoughts go on: "Dear me, he is sadly moved.
How I hope those tears will not fall. He is the best of creatures - I love
him dearly - but he is an Englishman, no more - emotional, lachrymose. Jack,
Jack!" he called out. " You have mistook the second variation."
Jack almost explodes, but then settles down, and they turn to improvising.
Jack's deepest longings are for Sophia, but he cannot put them into words,
doesn't want to, and won't even explore them, because he is in no position
to offer Sophia anything. He has no money, he cannot move on land, and he
has no command.
Off to Queenie's reception. There Jack meets Canning, with his offer of a
brand new privateer in which to make his fortune. Mrs W is also there (but
no Sophia), and she is mightily impressed when Lord Melville takes him
aside, and asks Jack to see him tomorrow. Suddenly Jack is bubbling over
inside. During conversation with Mrs W (on her best behaviour) he lets slip
that Stephen has land and a castle in Spain, and merino sheep, that Stephen
is not just a naval surgeon, but a physician, and suddenly Stephen could
have any of her daughters that he wanted.
Then Jack sees Diana. As usual, like a bitch about to come onto heat, she is
being sniffed around by all sorts of men, including Canning. Here is how
Jack, already in high spirits from his meetings with Canning, then Melville,
and even from his meeting with the mother of his deepest hope, reacts. "His
feelings needed no analysis: his heart, which had stopped while he searched
for the empty place by Mrs W, now beat to quarters: a constellation, a
galaxy of erotic notions raced through his mind, together with unmixed
pleasure in looking at her."
Then she catches site of Stephen and greets him "with a look of
straightforward, almost boyish delight" and all those lusting eyes watch
Stephen intently. "They saw nothing to give them uneasiness; the delicate
pink flush in Diana's face, reaching her ears, was that of spontaneous open
uncomplicated pleasure; Maturin's unaltered pallor, his somewhat absent
expression, matched her directness. Furthermore, he was looking uncommonly
plain - rusty, neglected, undarned. Jack relaxed.he had got it wrong, he
thought, with a warm and lively pleasure in his mistake: he often got things
wrong. He had set up for penetration, and he had got it wrong."
Isn't it fascinating. Stephen the spy covers his emotions so well, that not
even tensed up rivals detect his interest.
Jack receives just as friendly a greeting when he finally catches up with
her. Then, the farewell. Diana invites him to visit her on the morrow, but
he tells her that there is a writ against him, and he dare not walk around
freely. She spurns him for his fear, and does not look back as she leaves in
her coach. He walks back in with Stephen. ".by the time they had reached the
top each knew that their harmony was no longer what it had been these last
few months."
When Jack gets home he can't sleep, so he walks on the heath. His mind is in
a turmoil - Diana's contempt for him, her challenge to visit, should he
forgo the Admiralty and accept Canning's offer. He dreams of riches. "The
name of Sophia moved insistently up into that part of his mind where words
took form. He had repressed it as far as he was able ever since he ran for
France. He was not a marriageable man: Sophie was as far out of his reach as
an admiral's flag." She would never have treated him like Diana did. How
would he have acted if she had been there. Would he have run from Sophie?
Horror. What if he had seen them both together?
"It occurred to him that he should put some order into his thoughts about
these two." But he thinks it odious, indecent. Logic did not apply here,
because it wasn't a deliberate seduction or a marriage of interest. This is
a matter of the heart, so Jack will not analyse it, but simply follow his
impulses. Still, he is just about to take his bearings on the whole matter,
when he is held up by the lousy Adam Scrivener (fascinating Chaucer
reference as mentioned earlier this year). So he doesn't get his sorting out
done.
Then the interview with Lord Melville, the shabby offer of the Polychrest
(the Carpenter's Mistake), and Jack takes it, preferring the Navy rather
than riches as a privateer. He doesn't get made Post, but Pullings gets his
promotion.
Stephen deliberately did not tell Jack where he would be, but we find him
with Sophie, walking outside the Admiralty. She laments about Jack, " I was
very unkind to him when we last met.It is dreadful to be unkind: one keeps
remembering it." Not if you are Diana!
Stephen and Jack meet at the Grapes, Jack tells him of Canning's offer, as
he orders champagne. But it turns out Stephen has already met him, along
with 3 soldiers, and an Indian judge, all hanging around Diana, whom he
visited - full of life (and wanton unkindness). But Jack asked first after
Sophie, and is told, "She was not looking well. Thinner, unhappy. But she
has grown up: I think her more beautiful now than when we knew her in
Sussex."
What does Stephen mean by: she has grown up? He had only a brief
conversation with her. Hardly enough to make such a sweeping remark. Maybe
he senses the depth of her feeling for Jack, maybe he is so put off by Diana
's behaviour, that Sophie's steadfastness seems all the more attractive.
As far as Jack is concerned, Stephen's friendship is unquestionable. He has
asked the First Lord for Stephen to be appointed to Polychrest, and is
momentarily aghast when it sounds as if Stephen will leave him, to become
physician to the flagship. But Stephen is merely tied up with other things
for a while . Jack detects no passion in Stephen for Diana, so he feels free
(with only Stephen's disapproval as a friend who approves of Sophie, not as
a jealous rival) to pursue Diana.
Chapter 7 The Polychrest fitted out
Stephen's diary reveals that the friendship is not secure, that the mute
daily conflict is wearing him down, because Jack keeps after Diana, and only
believes what he wants to believe about Stephen's lack of interest in her.
And he can't understand how Diana playing with Jack is achieving her avowed
goal of a good, financial marriage. Stephen copes with his extreme tension
by using laudanum, by trying to distance himself and by active work, but he
is still amazed at the depth of his jealousy. If only Sophie would act
without her mother's consent. She still has her humour, but Stephen's keen
observation detects unhappiness beginning to settle on her features.
After the episode with the brutal punishment by Parker, when Stephen
intervenes, Stephen wants to leave Jack and the ship. Jack smiles when he
tells him that he cannot, because he is under martial law. But he is granted
leave, and he tells Jack deliberately that he shall also ride over to Mapes.
Once before, when he wanted to leave Jack, the note to him from Diana made
him stay. Now, he is under orders, and because of the note from the First
Lord, cannot go.
If you wanted to go symbolic, you could see the Polychrest with all her
leeway, as a picture of the friendship between Jack and Stephen, but the
Polychrest can never come to anything, whereas the friendship has been a
fine thing.
POB doesn't give us all the incidents. Obviously Jack is seeing Diana, but
we don't hear about it.
Which we will end part 3 here, because the next chapter has a large amount
to reflect on.
Michael Mayer
Michael Mayer (mayer@GEI.NET.AU)
Which it's Posting 4 of The Course of True Love. (Beware Post Captain
spoilers)
A humble analysis for the enjoyment of the Gunroom, by Michael Mayer
Chapter 8 In which Stephen hits the drops, Sophie hits Diana.
In three scenes.
Scene 1: Mapes. Stephen and Sophie
Stephen is announced. Sophie drops her needlework, casts a distracted glance
in the mirror and goes down. She and Stephen might look like lovers
together, but they aren't, else he would rate more than a distracted glance.
He asks after Diana, who isn't there (the reason why comes out later). He
relates how Jack is getting on with the frightful Polychrest and her
difficult crew, and has lost weight, which is good for him. He looks at her
complexion, and does the doctorly thing with her pulse, and checking her
tongue. Her weight is only 8st 5 lbs (54 kgs) and he insists on stout for
her with dinner.
As they walk in the park she relates the horrors of Mr Bowles. "There is one
man in the world I will ever marry, if he would have me - and I had him and
threw him away." Stephen points out that Jack cannot propose to her, because
he has no money. Why doesn't she let him know? But her letter to Jack from
Bath was really more than her modesty would allow. Stephen informs her it
came too late. But Sophie has agreed in herself that she will wait for Jack
(unless he marries elsewhere). She will wait, even if it meant giving up
babies, which she dearly wants (she is nearly 30). But she will not pursue
him and possibly embarrass him, he might have formed other attachments. When
Stephen reminds her of the story of her engagement in Bath to Mr Allen, she
calls herself an odious ninny, and regrets what might have been if she had
not been so jealous. [This is a reference to the words she had with Jack in
Bath about his relationship with Diana. Obviously some whisper of his
behaviour got to her, probably relayed by Mrs W. The only other reference we
have was Jack's comment to Christy-Palliere. Interesting how POB often just
alludes to things.] Sophie will not marry someone just because Mrs W
approves, but she will also not marry behind her back. She wants to bring
money to her marriage, and Mrs W has the purse strings. So things are at an
impasse for Sophie. She will not write, she will not pursue Jack, but she is
free to accept Admiral Haddock's invitation to join him in Plymouth.
Before we laugh at her - her foibles, limitations, and the social
conventions she is bound by, you might like to consider some of the
uncertain moments in your romances, when you or the other had not really
declared true feelings or hopes, and the anguished moments of wondering
whether this other person would want to go out with you, find you
interesting, attractive, worthy of attention, respect, love.
Their stroll takes them to the Grecian temple, and she tells him about her
quarrel with Diana there. Diana had taunted her about Jack in London: Diana
could see him whenever she wanted, he had not gone down to Portsmouth the
next day. [Which next day? The day after Queenie's reception, when Jack had
gone to the Admirality to be offered the Polychrest, and then straight to
the Grapes? He did not see Diana then. Maybe she is deliberately twisting
what happened. Or did Jack hang around in London an extra day while packing
up the house on Hampstead Heath, and go and see her before going down to
Portsmouth?] Then Sophie and Diana start calling each other names, and Diana
tells Sophie about letters, and how she could marry him anytime she wants,
but she does not want a half-pay captain nor another woman's leavings.
Sophie tells Stephen that she almost struck Diana with her riding crop.
[When did Jack write to Diana? He mentioned to C-Palliere that he had
committed himself pretty deeply. Maybe it was actually in writing, and not
just in moments of passion, or as an inducement to passionate intimacy with
her.] So Diana went off to the Teapot in Dover.
Then Stephen tells Sophie that he is very much attached to Diana. Sophie, in
her embarrassment blurts out that she thought it was Jack who wanted Diana.
"Never be distressed, honey. I know her faults as well as any man."
"Of course, she is very beautiful," said Sophia, glancing at him timidly.
"Yes. Tell me, is Diana wholly in love with Jack?"
"I may be wrong.I know very little about these things, or anything else; but
I do not believe Diana knows what love is at all."
I think Sophie's comment sums Diana up. Because of her personality, or
because of some lack of secure love in her past, Diana, in spite of her
protestations about wanting marriage, is not able to seek out and accept a
suitable partner as an equal. She runs away from this by making
inappropriate liaisons, and by keeping any serious, insightful suitor at
bay. She will only live for the present. Maybe, like Jack, she will not
analyse her feelings and her actions.
In this dialogue Stephen and Sophie have reached new depths, by sharing
their deep hopes with each other. This must be about the only place where
Stephen talks intimately to another person about something so personal and
so important to him. To no one else has he admitted such a secret. He has
even opened himself to more pain in front of her by asking Sophie about
Diana's feelings for Jack. I think she has given him a good answer, and a
comforting one.
Scene 2: At the Teapot's, Dover. Stephen and Diana
Stephen sends his card up. Diana changes, combs her hair, looks searchingly
into her reflection (no distracted glance, like Sophie). This is either an
insecure woman, or one about to meet a very important person in her life.
Stephen chides her for the time she has taken (has read the paper twice) and
hands over some smuggled scent. He certainly knows his target. She gushes
out an apology for being so disagreeable in London, compliments him on his
coat, then gives her version of the fight with Sophie. She despised Sophie's
want of decision, and then her mooning about. She described her fear when
Sophie offered to slash her face. But she is depressed. She wants Stephen to
be gay and witty. "I was just as pleased to come away too, with my face
intact; it is my fortune you know. You have not paid it a single compliment,
though I was liberal enough with you. Reassure me, Maturin - I shall be
thirty soon, and I dare not trust my looking glass."
Stephen looks deeply at her; complexion aged by India, the mark where Sophie
slashed her deeply. 'He hid his discovery behind all the command and
dissimulation that he was master of...' Quick reading might assume that his
discovery has merely been that she isn't looking her best, and has seen a
hint of the aged woman to come. But I think the discovery is actually that
Sophie did strike her. Both women have lied to him about it, and merely
claimed that Sophie threatened. But Sophie actually did strike, and deeply.
So Diana'a frustration at her life situation, expressed in baiting Sophie
cost her dearly. Life in the protection of Mrs W was no longer safe
physically for Diana (it was never safe in terms of a place where she was
loved and accepted), so now she is forced to live off her talents and her
acquaintances, and is reduced to the Teapot. Both women lied about the
stroke. Sophie may be ashamed that she actually went so far. For Diana it
was a physical humiliation, and much more emotionally damaging, because it
threatened her looks, and her dominance over Sophie.
Stephen immediately goes on. "An astonishing face. A damned good figurehead,
as we say in the Navy. And it has launched one ship, at least."
"A damned good figurehead," she said bitterly.
"And now for the harrow," he reflected. [he has used this image with her
treatment of him before]
"And after all this.why do you pursue me like this? I give you no
encouragement. I never have. I told you plainly at Bruton St that I liked
you as a friend but had no use for you as a lover. Why do you persecute me?
What do you want of me? If you think to gain your point by wearing me out,
you have reckoned short; and even if you were to succeed, you would only
regret it. You do not know who I am at all; everything proves it."
"I must go," he said getting up.
She was pacing nervously up and down the room. "Go, then.and tell your lord
and master I never want to see him again, either. He is a coward.' (then the
Teapot enters).
The Bruton St conversation (after Queenie's reception) has repeated the same
themes from their conversation in the orangery at the ball of chapter 2.
This is the third time for Stephen, and his reserves of strength are too low
to challenge her. The throwaway line about Jack as 'lord and master'
wounded as well.
When faced by Stephen's dogged pursuit, Diana is forced to face things about
herself that she does not like.
Interestingly, Diana is competent in all sorts of things that we don't
expect, like caring for a person with a mental illness. She is more than
just a mere wanton woman. But she does have to cope with lots of unwanted
male attention, even from her cousin, who asks Stephen's medical opinion
about incest.
Diana has invited Stephen and Jack for dinner on Friday.
Scene 3 Various scenes on the Polychrest. Stepehn and Jack, Canning
Jack is surprised that Diana has invited him as well. (Obviously they didn't
part well last time - the possible Bruton St meeting tauntingly referred to
by Diana, or Queenie's reception.) When Stephen observes his wounds as Jack
changes and comments on how close the pike thrust was to killing him, Jack
almost wishes it had. Jack asks about Sophie, but Stephen gives no
encouragement at all for Jack. [Why doesn't he say straight out that she is
thinking about him constantly? Wouldn't that make it easier for himself,
because Jack would not chase Diana? I don't understand Stephen's reticence
at this point.] As Stephen is tying his hair, Jack finds that he is unable
to ask him for money to provide a suitable feast for Canning or the other
meals he should provide.
Orders come through, and Friday's dinner with Diana is off. Jack sends a
polite note, Stephen sends only a word by Babbington. Then, to Jack, "I am
so glad you are not going ashore. It would have been the extreme of folly,
with the Polychrest known to be on the station." [An innocent joy, out of
concern for a friend, a veiled lecture, or a subtle rejoicing at Jack having
no time with Diana?]
Then Killick arrives with the hampers from Sophie and Admiral Haddock, plus
a freshly run over roebuck. Jack observes that the Mapes one is addressed to
Dr Maturin. Killick tells him it is all one. Perhaps Jack thinks that
Sophie doesn't really care for him. I think it is just that she would not be
so forward as to label it for him. But when Killick gives him the soused hog's face specially sent by Sophie to him, then his heart almost breaks. Now
he can give out invitations to gunroom members. Stephen is wondering how Mrs
W. will react when she finds her poultry, pig, and dairy produce all gone,
and how Sophie will reply. Will she lie, he wonders - she has no skill for
it. "I have no acquaintance with English family life, with English female
family life: it is to me a region quite unknown." Jack has none either:
'with a start of intense pain he jerked his mind away. "Lord I love that
Sophie so," he cried within.'
Canning joins them for the dinner, a very successful dinner, with Canning
even striking his head as he stands for the loyal toast. There is the
singing, including the prophetic line "three, three the rivals" of which
Stephen asks after the symbolism, and the gunroom was not able to explain to
my personal satisfaction a month ago, but there, we can't have everything.
Then begins the increasing contrast between Jack's personal self-serving
ethics on land, and his strict selfless naval ethics once on water. He has
an opportunity to catch a Deal gold smuggler, but no, he could not make his
station for a possible rendezvous if he did. Of course, there is no one
waiting that night, and the next night, when the boat does come out, the
young man is dying of wounds. Admiral Harte, who is hoping Jack will make
him rich, is obnoxious and insulting about Jack's efforts.
While they wait for a convoy to collect, Stephen explores the Goodwin Sands,
finds that the tide has covered his precious lead-soled boots, and is boat
hooked up by the distressed crew as he dives for them. He is bundled back on
board, to meet a high spirited Jack, who has also just returned to the
Polychrest, with Diana's scent hanging around him. Stephen declines Jack's
company and a glass of madeira sent by Canning, and immediately goes to his
cabin.
In his diary he writes 'She will always have that quality of being more
intensely alive, that spirit, that dash and courage, that almost ludicrous,
infinitely touching unstudied unconscious grace. [These are all the
qualities that attracts him to her.] But if.her face is her fortune.even
before her fatal 30th year it may reach a level at which I am no longer an
object of contempt. That, at all events is my only hope, and hope I must.
The vulgarity is new, and it is painful beyond my power of words to
express..If it grows, will it destroy her grace? Shall I one day find her
making postures, moving with artful negligence? That would destroy me.
Vulgarity: how far am I answerable for it?'
Oh dear, Stephen, so vigorously defended by his old shipmate Plaice at the
Goodwin Sands as a learned cove, is hardly thinking clearly,
philosophically. To think that his only chance of marrying her is for her to
accept him out of despair and utter resignation. What sort of marriage would
that be? He is feeling so low about himself and his chances, that he is in
despair, but cannot give her up. And then to think that she is becoming
vulgar, artful, to think that they are being mutually destructive, but to
still long for marriage to her, shows the sorry state of his esteem, and the
desperateness of his longings for her. No healthy mix for a contented life.
The chapter ends with the convoy complete, but Jack not starting off,
because he is constantly seeing Diana. Stephen is seriously tempted to
betray him and have him laid by the heels. But Jack gives Stephen such a
long-winded explanation of how he chanced across her and she invited them
both, that Stephen feels a rush of affection for Jack, in spite of the
jealousy. The dinner is a fine one, and Stephen even enjoys himself
somewhat, but he longs for the convoy to leave.
From the male point of view Diana is being cruel. She knows Stephen is in
love with her.She is having it off with Jack. What is going on in her head,
that she invites them both?
Sorry about this long posing on only one chapter, but there is a wealth of
material to ponder.
Michael Mayer
Michael Mayer (mayer@GEI.NET.AU)
Which it's Posting 5 of The Course of True Love. (Beware Post Captain
spoilers)
A humble analysis for the enjoyment of the Gunroom, by Michael Mayer
Chapter 9 Convoy duties
Jack has delayed the whole convoy by his carryings on with Diana. On the way
back he re-rigs Polychrest, rescues yet another drowning sailor, and is
amazed to find that Stephen is no mean hand with a pistol or a sword. Then
there is the fight with the Bellone. Jack has the choice, after the Bellone
has lost her steering - pursue her, or take up her prizes. Once again his
duty to the Navy and his country is plain. The dangerous raider must be
taken. He chases her and drives her onto a reef.
Admiral Harte is unimpressed by Jack's righteousness on the water. The Dutch
galliot was taken by Amethyst, and Harte had no share in the 10,000 guineas.
He is scornful of Jack's new rig, and tells him that a captain is not
permitted to sleep out of his ship without permission. He has heard about
Jack's shore activities. Jack is given Baltic convoy duty, Stephen gets a
sealed letter from the Admiralty - orders for special leave.
Chapter 10 In which Jack suddenly loses the urge, courtesy of Canning, but
the damage is deadly.
Scene 1 Stephen and Diana coaching companionably through Sussex.
Stephen is back to his bantering best (partly because he feels in control).
Diana is looking forward to a week's holiday in Brighton, but she was
observed there by Babbington last week, and Stephen also lets her know that
Jack thought Brighton full of temptation, particularly around the Prince of
Wales. So Diana can pretend no innocence. She finds Jack's comments preachy,
and Jack not the fun or laughter he was. But Stephen can no longer tell Jack
anything like that, because of increased tension after Diana's dinner, where
she devoted all her attention to Canning, much to Jack's displeasure. Diana
changes topic and tries to distract Stephen with a bird, but it is only a
common wheatear. After finding some little frogs, Diana wishes to know what
the delightful smell is, without being abused. They discuss the Baltic, and
she asks where Stephen is going. He is strongly tempted to tell her about
his secret trip to Spain, but says Ireland instead. Then they have one
tender moment. Stephen: "I like sitting in a chaise with you; above all when
you are like this. I could wish this road might go on for ever." There is a
moment of waiting. This could be THE moment to propose. Stephen misses it,
and tension has built right up, by the time he drops her at Lady Jersey's,
the mistress of the Prince of Wales, and Canning part of the set.
Scene 2 Admiral Haddock's at Plymouth
Sophie runs across the lawn, but the naval gentleman is only Stephen, who
delights in kissing her heartily, making her very pink. She is so proud that
the Patriotic Fund have voted Jack a 100 guinea sword and the merchants a
set of plate, for his work on the Bellone. But Stephen wants to talk about
Diana, and his pleasant ride with her. Sophie: 'I am so glad. No one can be
better company than Diana when she is in -' she quickly changed 'a good
temper' to a weak 'in charming spirits'.
But about Jack, and his friendship with him, Stephen is very pessimistic.
"He is jealous of me and I of him" but Stephen still loves him. Diana
protests that Jack can't know Stephen's feelings for Diana. But Stephen
believes he does " in his own way".
Then Stephen suggests that Sophie tell Jack directly of her affection for
him, because men are helpless against such directness. But she will not
write to him, and she abhors Stephen's suggestion of the Admiral arranging
for Jack to take Sophie and her sister to the Downs. (Immodest, risk of a
refusal - should die). But then she shyly turns the advice of directness
back to Stephen. "Then, if you were perfectly direct with Diana, and
proposed marriage to her, might not we all be perfectly happy? Depend upon
it, that is what she expects."
"I? Make her an offer? My dearest Sophie, you know what kind of match I am.
A little ugly small man, with no name and no fortune. And you know her pride
and ambition and connections." So there it is. He wants Diana, but feels
that he is not up to her standards, and never will be, even though Sophie
immediately points out all his good qualities. (Have you ever done this to a
disappointed lovesick friend, in an effort to bolster their self- esteem and
courage?) His 200 pound a year and his castle should be enough to keep her.
"Your sweet partiality blinds you, my dear. And as for love - love, that
amiable unmeaning word - however you may define it, I do not believe she
knows what it is, as you told me once yourself. Affection, kindness,
friendship, good nature sometimes, yes: beyond that, nothing. No. I must
wait. It may come, perhaps; and in any case, I am content to be a pis aller.
I too know how to wait. I dare not risk a direct refusal - perhaps a
contemptuous refusal."
And then, seeking further grounds to disqualify himself he adds that he is
Catholic, which Sophie rightly dismisses. They part with Stephen asking if
he may keep writing to Sophie, and she relating how she sent Mr Bowles about
his business.
[Stephen's way of coping is to be self-deprecating and wait and hope
desperately for something to change in the whole balance.]
Scene 3 Stephen in Deal - the Rose and Crown, and then aboard Polychrest
After Ireland, Spain, Ireland ('If I could throw off some of this burden of
memory," said Stephen to his second glass of laudanum, 'I should be more
nearly sane. Here's to you Villiers, my dear.') Stephen is finally in a safe
place and able to begin relaxing after all the tension he has been through.
He is emotionally and physically exhausted. Heneage Dundas joins him, and
finally tells Stephen that Jack is ruining his career, not clearing his
convoys, and putting into the Downs at any excuse.
On board Stephen immediately senses that the whole atmosphere is bad. Parker
is almost hysterical, and the new Marine officer, Smithers, bounding about
showing his authority. When Smithers later joins Stephen in the gunroom,
Stephen can cope with his young arrogance, but not when he talks about the
Captain having a luscious piece at Dover. Stephen insists on respect for her
in his presence, which he gets accompanied by a 'knowing leer' and then has
his revenge by playing cards and stripping Smithers of a very large sum.
Stephen has not been aboard more than an hour or two, but he has been
infected by the poisonous atmosphere, and added to it.
Finally Stephen catches up with Jack, who is delighted to see him, and
Stephen responds to that , in spite of Diana's scent hanging around him.
Jack is not looking well, and troubled by dreams that even include Sophie.
Jack presents him with his narwhal horn, and when Stephen offers to pay,
pulls Smithers' gold out of his pockets. Jack is distressed by the amount
lost, concerned about the affect on his ship. Stephen desires to see that
sword and plate that Sophie told him about. "Sophie?' cried Jack, as though
he had been kicked." But Jack has already hocked them in Dover.
At that cue, Stephen takes the plunge, and passes on Dundas' warning. He
continues: "Do not look angrily at me now, Jack, but let me tell you three
things: I must do so, as a friend. First, you will certainly be arrested for
debt if you continue to go ashore. Second, it is said in the service that
you cling to this station; and what harm that may do you professionally, you
know better than I. No, let me finish. Third, have you considered how you
expose Diana Villiers by your very open attentions, in circumstances of such
known danger?" There, Stephen has said it, and said it very well.
Jack naturally defends himself, accusing Stephen of wanting a clear field
for himself. And it becomes obvious that Diana has been talking to Jack
about Stephen and his qualities, and making comparisons designed to show
Jack in a poor light. "It is time we had a clear explanation about Diana
Villiers, so that we may know where we stand." Now, they are in a position
to talk it through and sort it out, but in this atmosphere of intense
emotion Stephen cannot simply say, " I love her, and wish that I was in a
position to marry her."
Stephen refuses to explain, believing that with 'sexuality' concerned,
reason flies out the window. Jack calls him a bastard, evading the issue.
Stephen insists he withdraw. Jack doesn't, adding liar to the accusations -
the sun tan was not gotten in Ireland.
Now the disintegration is complete. The ship's company has almost fallen
apart because of Jack's onshore conduct, Smithers has been stripped of his
gold because of Stephen's frustration, and now the great friendship has
blown apart.
"It is odd enough," said Stephen, in a low voice, "that our acquaintance
should have begun with a challenge, and that it should end with one."
Scene 4 Preparing for the duel
Stephen was passing on Dundas' warning, so he calls on Jack's friend to be
his second. 'Bastard' has been immediately apologised for - no slight
intended by Jack on Stephen's birth, 'but the gratuitous lie remains.' That
is not the real reason for the duel, but Stephen, responding to Jack's over
heated hormones, refuses to talk about the real reasons. No man is going to
humiliate himself before another in that way. The irony is that the given
excuse, Stephen's lying, is done for the good of the nation. Now Stephen's
standing on the boat is quite altered, and he is as inoffensive as possible
on board. Dundas arranges the time, and Stephen leaves with him on a
Thursday afternoon, with the duel set for Saturday night by the castle. Now
that all is prepared, Stephen is at some peace. He rides to Dover, and sees
Jack's gig set off for the same place. "Knowing them both as I do," he
observed, " I should be surprised if there were much liking between them. It
is a perverse relationship. That, indeed, may be the source of its
violence."
Good analysis by Stephen. Diana's relationship with Jack does not inspire
him to any great heights. It is fun, it is sex, but it isn't one that calls
him out of himself. It doesn't call him to give of himself. And the fruits
of it aren't good, in terms of Stephen and Jack's friendship. Jack isn't
fighting for her honour, but only for his sexual right to her. He isn't
thinking of her.
At Dover he goes to see Macdonald, the injured Marine, who he remarks will
soon rival Nelson in being able to spring one handed from ship to ship. But
Macdonald is no fan of Nelson, and like Goodridge the ship's master a few
pages previously, now opens up about the things that obsess him. For
Macdonald, Nelson is a terrible example, for people assume that what was
good enough for their hero is good enough for them, and so justify all sorts
of wickedness. "I hate women. They are entirely destructive. They drain a
man, sap him, take away all his good: and none the better for it
themselves..Nasty, nasty queans." At the moment this is an accurate picture
of Diana's affect on both Jack and Stephen. Is this to be the conclusive
judgement on her? Stephen doesn't reflect on these cynical, poisoned
observations. He merely asks to borrow the Marine's Manton pistols.
Stephen rides back into the very late afternoon in a very languid frame of
mind, but then practises coldly, precisely and with deadly accuracy. Jack
will be very dead, if Stephen chooses. He looks forward to a peaceful
night's sleep.
Meanwhile Jack is not at peace. Diana is 'not at home' to his inquiries,
and, drinking beer in a cheep knocking shop, he finds anger and indignation
an unsatisfying refuge. He goes back to Diana's, and the light betrays her
presence. He hauls himself up by the tiler's bucket, hears Canning's laugh.
Then he looks in. "For three deep breaths he might have burst through: it
was extraordinarily vivid.the faces.their intense life and their
unconsciousness of a third person. Then shame, unhappiness extreme weariness
put out the rest, extinguished it utterly. No rage, no fire: all gone, and
nothing to take their place."
It is all over for Jack. He knows that Diana is not for him. The anger that
he felt towards Stephen as a rival was fuelled by the knowledge that deep
down Stephen was right about Jack's behaviour with Diana. But Canning has
not tried to warn him off, and Diana is totally absorbed in him, so there is
no inclination to crash through and have it out.
Stephen has slept well (without laudanum), his affairs are all in order, and
out he goes walking on the Friday afternoon. Jack is called in to Admiral
Harte, who rejoices inwardly to see him so worn down. His vindictive orders
are for the Polychrest to take on a job it is not suited for - disable the
corvette Fanciulla and gunboats at Chaulieu. Jack makes a perfunctory
objection, doesn't even bite when Harte hints that he is shy of the job.
Jack meekly accepts the orders. The old, testosteroned Jack would have
possibly ended up in serious trouble by disputing Harte's orders. The newly
humbled - about to be killed in a duel - Jack does not bother, and so is
saved.
The gun and the blue peter recall Stephen to the ship, the duel is on hold,
but the reason for having it has gone.
Michael Mayer
Michael Mayer (mayer@GEI.NET.AU)
Which it's Posting 6 of The Course of True Love. (Beware Post Captain
spoilers)
A humble analysis for the enjoyment of the Gunroom, by Michael Mayer
Chapter 11 In which Jack overcomes mutiny, restores his reputation
The mutineers assume Stephen is for them, but he immediately extricates
himself before they make him an approach, informs Jack very formally, but
will not identify the ring leaders.
"No sir, you may call me many things, but not an informer. I have said
enough, more than enough."
.."Thank you for having come to see me," he (Jack) said stiffly.
When the door had closed behind Stephen he sat down with his head in his
hands and let himself go to total unhappiness - to something near despair -
so many things together, and now this cold evil look: he reproached himself
most bitterly for not having seized this chance for an apology. "If only I
could have got it out; but he spoke so quick, and he was so very cold.
Though indeed, I should have looked the same if any man had given me the
lie; it is not to be borne. What in God's name possessed me? So trivial, so
beside the point - as gross as a schoolboy calling names - unmanly. However,
he shall make a hole in me whenever he chooses..now that I know he is such a
deadly old file."
What possessed him? For Jack the whole Diana thing has passed like waking
clear minded after being in an fever. And a fever it has been. But he has
repented, he has come to his senses, and all he has to do is apologise. But
he does not see that he will be able to get it out, with Stephen in the mood
he is in. Amazing, Jack will submit to death, rather than break through
Stephen's coldness.
At the end of the chapter, after his desperate attempt to refloat the
unworthy Polychrest, he watches her sink from the Fanciulla, as the blood
collects at his feet from his head wound.
"Come, brother," said Stephen. "Come below.here is too much blood
altogether.Bonden, carry him with me."
Brother. No longer addressed with the cold "sir". Jack's bravery and
decisiveness in averting a mutiny, in action, but even more his obvious need
of Stephen's medical help have restored the friendship and love that we all
treasure. The feeling of deep tragedy about to happen in a duel has been
alleviated by the action scene. Is there going to be a formal settling of
the issues from the duel?
Chapter 12 Jack made Post
Jack is dashing off his letter to the Babbington's, alerting them that young
William, who distinguished himself in the action, may lose his arm. Stephen
is sitting with Jack in the cabin, berating him for taking so long to
write, and reminding Jack of his medicines (physic, bolus, quarts of
porter). As they cast off he continues, ".and of course Venerem omitte."
[What a dig at Jack]
"Eh? Oh, her. Yes. Very proper." They arrive at the beach and cross into the
dunes at the place Stephen has nominated. For 2 horrible paragraphs it
sounds like the duel will go ahead. "I wish we could have worked the
hearse," muttered Jack. But it is only the post-chaise conveying the
bloodless Jack safely to London, safely under the care of Preserved Killick,
disguised against all tipsters in his clergyman's hat, ready to administer
the dreadful bolus exactly as ordered.
As Jack waits in the Admiralty, uncertain of how it will go for him, he
reviews his past conduct. Stephen's warning had hit a raw conscience. The
clever marks in the log book explaining why he was absent from the ship, at
the Downs so often, suddenly seemed weak and foolish. But all this goes,
when Lord Melville makes him post.
In his joy he wonders into a chapel, delighting in the organ music, and Jack
brings out a fine clench about leaving Handel up in the air for lack of
wind. Jack stays and witnesses the wedding of the young couple with the
bride about to go into labour. The service makes him reflect on marriage and
his own state: "mutual support - no loneliness - no God-damned solitude -
tell happiness and sorrows quite openly - sweet child, not the least trace
of the shrew - trusting, confident - marriage a very capital thing, quite
different from - by God, I am on the wrong side of Cecil Street."
Foiled by POB again. Quite different from what? Carrying on with Diana. And
obviously there has been a shrewish side to her. And she certainly hasn't
acted trustworthily with Jack.
He has orders for the Lively, and he writes from the Grapes to Stephen, his
dear Stephen, to join him as his guest. The letter concludes with a solemn
oath that he will not set foot on shore again until he has cleared his debts
and can move without fear.
So, without any formal apology they are back to dear friends. The oath
assures Stephen that Jack is not only acting sensibly at last, but has also
renounced Diana (veniality properly omitted).
And when Stephen arrives in the Lively, in his philosophical garment and
glass beehive, we know that the relationship is back to its splendid best.
Only Jack's joy at being post, and his great love for Stephen would cope
with the embarrassment and possible contempt that Stephen's behaviour brings
on him in front of a whole new ship's company.
I love the incident with the ape's head that Stephen's expertise sorts out.
Jack warns the sailor who hit the other, that " he must not fly into a
passion; that flying into a passion was a very bad thing - it would
certainly lead to the gallows, if indulged in." This is rich, coming from
Jack. Still, no better saint than a reformed sinner. Jack certainly knows
the effects of flying into a very long passion.
Now that he has renounced Diana, he does not immediately turn back to
thinking of Sophie. But she is there, in his subconscious, rising as he
wonders about the Lively's gunnery, and finds the Hummel adagio going
through his mind, and then pictures her clearly.
At the end of the chapter Jack makes a special point of offering the barge
for Stephen to go ashore in. They are at the Downs. There is the tension as
Stephen asks if Jack will also go? No, he believes he will never willingly
set foot ashore again. His oath not to risk arrest holds. All this said with
the painful jarring levity that Stephen knows so well. Stephen tests him
out. Has Jack any messages for New Place, and the hospital where he will
call? Only compliments, but his real concern is for his men in hospital,
especially Babbington, whom it is impossible for him to visit. So Stephen
knows that the affair is over. He has no rival in Jack anymore.
[What do you think? Does the sudden letting go of Diana ring true to you? It
is as though she never existed as an object of passion for him.]
Michael Mayer
Michael Mayer (mayer@GEI.NET.AU)
Which it's Posting 7 of The Course of True Love. (Beware Post Captain
spoilers)
A humble analysis for the enjoyment of the Gunroom, by Michael Mayer.
And thanks for your patience. I've really enjoyed all the discussions about
Stephen, Jack, Diana and Sophie, plus all the personal stories that have
reflected on the issues.
Chapter 13 In which Diana has departed the scene; Jack of the Lively will
not entertain any thoughts of Sophie.
After the release of the tension of the duel, and Jack being freed of his
lust for Diana, POB starts to tie up loose ends, and bring the novel to its
conclusion.
Stephen in Dover goes to the Teapot's, but it is all shut up. Jack acted as
a voyeur to spy on Diana. Stephen breaks in, another voyeur, this time in a
dreamy state, soaking up the impressions. He even goes through the waste
paper basket. Maybe the scratched out lines were where she had tried to
write to him. In her dressing room he catches the whiff of her scent. She
has left, and, it seems, she has left him. "At least.this is not the horror
of the last" [whatever he means by that - the horror of the last time he
smelled that scent on Jack, or possibly that she is at least still alive and
not dead?] He stops the 30 day clock, thus putting his mark on the ending
of this part of his life, and seems calm and collected, as he walks out and
keeps gong all the way to Deal. Only there does he realise that his boat is
back at Dover, so he walks back. So much for
Jersey
British Channel Islands
49º11'N
02º07'W
From: Rowen84@AOL.COM
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 20:54:41 EDT
Subject: Re: Post Captain
From: Susan Wenger
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 07:26:30 -0700
Subject: GroupRead:PC:Nelson quare
From: Susan Wenger
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 10:28:28 -0700
Subject: GroupRead:PC:Smell
From: Martin Watts
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 06:57:28 +0100
Subject: Re: GroupRead:PC:Smell
50° 44' 57" N
1° 58' 34" W
From: "Gary W. Sims"
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 22:23:30 -0700
Subject: Re: GroupRead:PC:Smell
From: "Paul B."
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 18:59:08 +0100
Subject: Re: GroupRead:PC:missed the first read-through
From: Rowen84@AOL.COM
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 14:28:13 EDT
Subject: Re: GroupRead:PC:missed the first read-through
From: Susan Wenger
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 15:50:00 -0700
Subject: Re: GroupRead:PC:missed the first read-through
From: "Gary W. Sims"
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 20:21:21 -0700
Subject: Re: GroupRead:PC:missed the first read-through
Afraid this thread is getting a little sticky
At or about 34°42' N 118°08' W
From: Martin Watts
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 00:11:13 +0100
Subject: GroupRead:PC:Titles
50° 44' 57" N
1° 58' 34" W
From: Susan Wenger
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 07:50:14 -0700
Subject: GroupRead:PC:Another "animal" parallel
From: Don Seltzer
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 09:54:48 -0400
Subject: Re: GroupRead:PC:Another "animal" parallel
From: "Gary W. Sims"
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 13:00:18 -0700
Subject: Through a glass narrowly (PC spoiler)
Now preferring aircraft with full loads if he must fly
At or about 34°42' N 118°08' W
From: Karen von Bargen
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 04:13:27 -0000
Subject: Re: Group Read OT Diana
San Martin
1 dog
2 housecats
2 semiferal cats
5-10 feral cats/kittens
34 chickens
2 ducks
7 goldfish
large feed bill
From: Barney Simon
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 13:32:00 -0400
Subject: Groupread: PC women's heights
From: Ray McPherson
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 21:53:29 -0700
From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 19:53:25 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
From: "Jill H. Bennett"
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 17:18:22 -0700
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 20:26:47 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
From: Marian Van Til
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 15:20:08 -0400
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
From: Rosemary Davis
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 22:08:01 -0400
Subject: when people were shorter and lived near the water
From: Jean A
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 11:35:38 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread PC women's heights
From: Barney Simon
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 13:37:00 -0400
Subject: Groupread: PC, French waiters
From: Tim Stenning
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC, French waiters/and Red Hairs
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 19:24:32 -0700
DV is damning ALL men (general) from the few (particular) she
has met. SM shows her the fallacy in the argument. SMs illustration of DVs argument:
Pierre is a French waiter
All French waiters have red hair
From: Barney Simon
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 13:24:00 -0400
Subject: Money in the canon
East of NYC
From: Larry & Wanda Finch
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 19:41:48 -0400
Subject: Re: Money in the canon
::finches@bellatlantic.net larry@prolifics.com
::LarryFinch@aol.com (whew!)
N 40° 53' 47"
W 74° 03' 56"
From: Peter Theune
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 22:04:18 -0400
Subject: Re: Money in the canon
From: Batrinque@AOL.COM
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 19:46:22 EDT
Subject: Re: Money in the canon
41*37'53"N 72*22'51"W
From: "John Germain"
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: [POB] Money in the canon
Jersey
British Channel Islands
49º11'N
02º07'W
From: Linda Cast
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 20:30:00 -0500
Subject: Re: Money in the canon
From: Barney Simon
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 15:35:00 -0400
Subject: Groupread: PC Guides to navigation
From: Adam Quinan
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 07:56:13 -0400
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC Guides to navigation
------Commander Ted Walker R.N.
Somewhere around 43° 46' 21"N, 79° 22' 51"W
From: Jim McPherson
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 07:04:05 -0700
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC Guides to navigation
33* 47' 30" N
116* 32' 10" W
675' above sea level
From: Gregory Edwards
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 09:45:51 -0700
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC Guides to navigation
From: Gerry Strey
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 09:06:20 -0500
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC, French waiters
"Not all French waiters have red hair." and her reply:
"They all have red hair somewhere about them, and it shows sooner or
later."
Mladison, Wisconsin
From: Rowen84@AOL.COM
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 12:58:05 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
From: Barney Simon
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 14:08:00 -0400
Subject: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 08:25:31 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
From: "Donald R. Morris"
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 10:15:01 -0500
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
E-Mail: drmorris@airmail.net
URL: www.tridentsyndicate.com
Tel & FAX: (713) 668-8665
From: Mary S
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 16:00:02 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
From: Karen von Bargen
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 00:16:07 -0000
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
San Martin
From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 22:00:03 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
From: John Germain
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 21:42:47 +0000
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
Jersey
British Channel Islands
49º11'N
02º07'W
From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 17:47:53 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
From: Karen von Bargen
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 02:48:29 -0000
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
San Martin
definitely landlocked
From: "Gary W. Sims"
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 19:58:54 -0700
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
And twice the avoirdupois to pad that soul
At or about 34°42' N 118°08' W
From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 00:24:50 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC SM's nautical knowledge
From: Ray McPherson
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 12:27:18 -0700
Subject: Re: when people were shorter and lived near the water
From: Barney Simon
Subject: wafered letter?
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 14:04:00 -0400
From: Ladyshrike@AOL.COM
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 08:27:34 EDT
Subject: Re: wafered letter?
2 : an adhesive disk of dried paste with added coloring matter used as a
seal
From: Ginger Johnson
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 09:13:42 -0700
Subject: Re: wafered letter?
From: Adam Quinan
Subject: Re: wafered letter?
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 09:39:01 -0400
---------Commander Ted Walker R.N.
Somewhere around 43° 46' 21"N, 79° 22' 51"W
From: Don Seltzer
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 12:37:56 -0400
Subject: Re: wafered letter?
From: Barney Simon
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 13:43:00 -0400
Subject: Groupread: PC SM's recruitment
"and close beside him stood two shorter figures, the one Dr. Maturin,...and
the other a man in black - black clothes, black hat and a streaming black
cloak - who might have had _intelligence_agent_ written on his narrow
forehead. Or just the word _spy_, there being so little room."
From: Amanda Dunham
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 14:38:55 -0700
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
The List Sin Eater, not the Amanda in the UK ;-)
37* 33' 22.93" N NAD 27
122* 19' 51.46" W Clark 66
+81 ft Mean Sea Level
Ben Gunn
Robert Louis Stevenson, -=Treasure Island=-
From: Steve Turley
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 14:54:21 -0700
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
"...Diana with her straight back and high-held head seemed quite tall,
but when she stood next to her cousin, she came no higher than her
ear..."
From: Rowen84@AOL.COM
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 18:27:22 EDT
Subject: Re: Groupread: PC women's heights
From: John Finneran
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 1:11 AM
Subject: GRP: PC: Course of True Love (Very Long)
who hasn't even begun re-reading PC yet
--------------------------
Tue, 25 May 1999 13:45:28 +0800
Course of True Love Part 1 (PC spoilers)
Esperance, remote rural Western Australia
33º52' S, 121º54'E
---------------------------
Fri, 28 May 1999 21:40:55 +0800
Course of True Love Part 2 (PC spoilers)
Esperance, remote rural Western Australia
33º52' S, 121º54'E
--------------------------------
Wed, 2 Jun 1999 10:24:04 +0800
Course of True Love Part 3 (PC spoilers)
Esperance, remote rural Western Australia
33º52' S, 121º54'E
------------------------------------------------------------
Thu, 10 Jun 1999 21:49:05 +0800
Course of True Love Part 4 (PC spoilers)
Esperance, remote rural Western Australia
33º52' S, 121º54'E
-------------------------------------
Tue, 22 Jun 1999 12:06:06 +0800
The Course of True Love Part 5 (PC spoilers)
Esperance, remote rural Western Australia
33º52' S, 121º54'E
-------------------------------------
Wed, 23 Jun 1999 20:49:07 +0800
Course of True Love Part 6 (PC spoilers)
Esperance, remote rural Western Australia
33º52' S, 121º54'E
---------------------------
Tue, 6 Jul 1999 13:47:28 +0800
Course of True Love Part 7 (PC spoilers)