A Guide to Dorothy Sayers I

You may remember that last week I quoted a passage from Dorothy Sayer's introduction to her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Click here  to refresh your recollection. She listed some of the references drawn largely from British history of the late 19th and early 20th century that a British poet in the middle of the 20th century might use in creating an analog.  Her point was that these references will become obscure over time, just as the various references of medival Italy now seem quite obscure to us.

The passage of time has proven her right in this.  I've decided to see if I can say something about every one of her references, just as if these were for the annotations of a real poet.

Let's begin:

Chamberlain (him of the orchid) – Joseph Chamberlain (1836 – 1914), who wore an orchid as a personal signature, was a prominent political figure of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and though never prime minister his name was associated with a hawkish policy against the Boers in South Africa.  He was also the father of the next figure on our list.

Chamberlain (him of the umbrella) – Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940, prime minister 1937-1940)  -- widely reviled in the post war years including the period in which Sayers was writing – he has found some scholarly defenders since. He often carried an umbrella in public, was always portrayed with one in cartoons, and  is remembered for his part in the Munich Accords, conceding Germany’s sovereignty over the Sudetenland in what had been Czechoslovakia.

[Stewart Houston] Chamberlain (1855-1927), a British-born author of books on race, he became a German citizen in 1916 and produced anti-Brit propaganda for the remainder of that war.  It doesn’t appear that there was any relation to the above Chamberlains.

“Brides-in-the-Bath” Smith – George Joseph Smith (1872 – 1915), a serial killer convicted in the Old Bailey in 1915 of drowning each of his three wives.

 “Galloper” Smith – F.E. Smith, who became known as “Galloper” when that term was used in much the way we use the term “gofer.” A Galloper was someone who did errands for someone more famous.  F.E. Smith was an associate/galloper of Sir Edward Carson  in support of giving Ireland Home Rule. Later, he became Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.

Horatio Bottomsley (1860-1933) – the publisher of a patriotic journal of opinion, John Bull, during the first world war.  Argued for the confiscation of the property of German nationals living in Britain, and a requirement that they be required to wear distinctive clothing.   I hope Dorothy Sayers was thinking of him as a plausible occupant of one of the rings of hell. 

Horatio Lord Nelson (1758-1805)  this one requires no explanation.  Victor at Trafalgar.

Fox [Charles or George] .  George Fox (1624-1691) was the founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Charles Fox (1749-1806) was the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for about three months in 1782, as the Brits sought to cut their losses in America. That was just an incident within a long parliamentary career, in which he was perhaps the most prominent advocate of the abolition of slavery within the Empire.

Man who picked up the bomb in Jermyn Street – this apparently refers to Al Bowlly (1898-1941), a jazz crooner who made a thousand recordings in the late 1920s and through the 1930s, in both the UK and US, and whose life was brought to an end during the Blitz in London in the manner to which this phrase makes reference.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) this one doesn’t yet require explanation.  

Oscar Slater (1872 – 1948), the victim of a once-notorious case of mistaken identity in the murder of Marion Gilchrist in 1908.  The case has often been cited as showing the imperfect nature of witness identifications/line-ups etc. The identification evidence in this case was the result of coaching of the witnesses and more subtle means of slanting their decision.

Oscar Browning (1837-1923), a figure of some repute at Cambridge University in the late 19^th century.  Mentioned quite unfavorably by Virginia Woolf in “A Room of One’s Own” in connection with his prejudice against the education of women.  

That's a good start.  More tomorrow.

From the Meetinghouse

I sporadically attend meetings of the Society of Friends, as I believe I've mentioned here a time or two.

The protocol at these events is that the Friends never address one another directly. A speaker will stand up, launch directly into whatever he/she wishes to say -- is impelled by the Inner Light to say -- and will then sit down. After that, there is customarily a pause (anyone else standing up and speaking immediately would seem too much like he/she was "answering" the previous speaker). Further, even after a decent interval has passed, references to what a previous speaker has said are, at most, elliptical.

This Sunday I witnessed the closest thing to an "argument" I've yet seen at such a gathering. One speaker said that he was concerned about "how we should deal with people who are angry, I might say almost hysterically angry ...." about the enactment of the new health care bill in the US. His implication was that they were clearly wrong but he was uncertain how to gently persuade them of their wrongheadedness.

After the necessary decent interval had passed, a woman rose to say that she was among those who are "angry and fearful about the deficit burden we are placing upon our children," and so forth.

The next person to stand up after that sang a song. I've never heard anybody sing at one of these meetings before. My impression was that she thought the exchange of views on partisan grounds made something extraordinary appropriate. The song was about the suffering of children which, all agree, is a bad thing.

For my own part, I am convinced the health care bill will do more harm than good in the end, but I am not especially exercised by it. There are many worse things our government could be doing, and in fact is doing. The health care system likely to result from this bill is akin to that of Singapore, from what I understand, and whatever its ill-effects may be there, they would seem contained.

Robert Barclay

In the words of Robert Barclay, one of the first generation of Quakers:

"All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit, which is neither limited to places, times, nor persons: for though we be to worship him always, and that we are continually to fear before him, yet as to the outward signification thereof in prayers, praises or preachings, we ought not to do it in our own will, where and when we will; but where and when we are moved thereunto by the stirring and secret inspiration of the Spirit of God in our hearts; which God heareth and accepteth of, and is never wanting to move us thereunto when need is, of which he himself is the alone proper judge. All other worship then, both praises, prayers or preachings, which man sets about in his own will and at his own appointment, which he can both begin and end at his pleasure, do or leave undone as himself seeth meet, whether they be a prescribed form, as a liturgy, &c., or prayers conceived extempore by the natural strength and faculty of the mind, they are all but superstitions, will-worship, and abominable idolatry in the sight of God, which are now to be denied and rejected, and separated from in this day of his spiritual arising, however it might have pleased him (who 'winked at the times of ignorance,' with a respect to the simplicity and integrity of some, and of his own innocent Seed, which lay, as it were, buried in the hearts of men under that mass of superstition) to 'blow upon the dead and dry bones,' and to raise some breathings of his own and answer them; and that until the day should more clearly dawn and break forth."