THROUGH ENGLAND ON A SIDE SADDLE

Celia Fiennes (1662-1741)

I saw a reference to this book on Travelin' Penguin's blog and ordered it over the net;  the price was very reasonable but i was a bit surprised when it turned out to be just excerpts from her diaries.  But I began reading and got interested and decided to post on it.  Celia was not a stay at home personality.  Her travels started in 1684 and continued to 1714, more or less. 

The five sections of this book begin in Wales and follow a more-or-less clockwise route through the border countries to Newcastle on Tyne and down through the fennish swamplands, over through  the Cotswolds to Bristol and Bath and thence down to Lands End, exploring the southern English coast and Cornwall.  In Staffordshire she visited some of the pottery manufacturies and described how that industry was somewhat mobile, following clay deposits one after another as the beds were used up.  In most of the places she passed through, her main concerns seemed to be the churches and cathedrals and the sources and types of coal that were in use by the householders.  She was upset by the road conditions in many of the locales, such as along the east coast, where she and her guide were often forced into sandy areas containing quicksands and boggy places, or having to ford numerous creeks and rivers while slogging through mud and swamps.  She seemed fascinated by St. Winifred's Well, with it's stoney, over-hanging arches and the clear water that featured circles of red pebbles on its bed.  These were dropped in by parishioners and pilgrims, in honor of the saint, who had been beheaded in the same place, but later restored to life through holy intercession.

In the Lake district she commented on the pristine lakes and the impressive mansions built by some of the upper class lords.  Most of them were constructed of slate and with a sort of very hard coal found in that region.  The "burning well" was of interest:  the water burned one's mouth when drunk, and it could be lit on fire with relative ease.  Crossing a rocky creek, her horse slipped and skidded on some of the smooth rocks but she didn't fall off.  This happened near the "Three Brothers" tree:  an ancient oak 39 feet in circumference.  She stopped to examine the Great Mag, a Henge like the more famous one in Wiltshire, but with thirty standing stones.  In Carlisle she stayed at an inn, unusual for her because she often spent the night with one of her many relatives that were spread all over the country.  She was evidently not happy with it;  she said it was the most expensive night in her whole trip:  12 shillings for 2 joints of mutton, a pint of wine, with bread and beer.

She was not pleased with Scotland, describing the rutted and rocky roads and the dirty and unlettered inhabitants, inferring that England was more civilized.  But she only crossed the border country without venturing into the more civilized areas.  She admired the fine cathedrals in Bath and Bristol, but noted that there was a lot of air pollution in that coal-mining region.  She stayed in that area for several days, attending, among other things, an anatomizing dissection of a corpse in the local "Barber's Surgeon's Hall".  Wookey Hole was a very interesting cavern.  The Axe river runs through it and it consists mainly of three large rooms although it has, even today, never been completely explored.

On the way into Cornwall, her horse slid and fell over in a mudpuddle but Ms. Fiennes kept her seat, apparently not much disturbed.  They arrived in Exeter and spent some time there, visiting relatives and exploring the fulling mills and serge production facilities.  Exeter at that time was a rival to London in terms of total merchant and trading activity even though it was four miles from the ocean and all its products had to be carried on mule or horseback to and from the sea.  While Ms. F was there, a channel was being excavated to alleviate the problem.  Continuing on, she examined Plymouth and some of the other southern ports, citing rope walks and dock yards devoted to the maintenance of British commercial shipping.

In Cornwall the tin mines attracted her interest and she went to some lengths in studying their operations.  Water was a big problem and half of the work force was used in running the water-driven pumps that kept the lower levels liquid free.  One thousand men were employed in 20 mines in one section of the country.  Ms. F stayed with relatives in another great house located in the area.  She could see for 20 miles in every direction because of its position on a promontory.  Descending to continue onward they had to walk the Pensand region next to the ocean;  they passed a church that was sinking into the beach.  Going through St. Ives without meeting anyone with seven wives, they arrived at Lands End, where Ms. F clambered around on the rocks until she got tired and went back to the house to rest.

 LIFE IN A PUTTY KNIFE FACTORY

H. Allen Smith (1907-1976)

I'd been threatening to read this book for a while and finally did.  It's a series of humorous vignettes from the author's history, describing in detail some of the funny things that happened to him in his pursuit of his vocation as a columnist/journalist.  There are 17 essays, from "In Defense of Smiths" to "Walla Walla Talk".  Smith has an occasionally sardonic sense of humor that frequently amuses but often wanders off into the fiendish undergrowth.  The first paragraph from "Flight from the City Room":  Twenty years is not such a long time to a carp because a carp lives to be one hundred fifty and doesn't worry much, being just as dumb at the age of one hundred forty-nine as he was at the age of two.  Twenty years is, however, a long time in my estimation, for it represents the period i spent as a newspaperman." 

Smith was good friends with Westbrook Pegler and Fred Allen, and the trio, with others in that hard-drinking journalistic era, often tooted themselves into difficulties, social and physical.  H. Allen mines these sorts of events with a coarse-toothed comb, draping them over a superstructure made of newsprint and editorial exaggeration with a liberal hand.  Most of the articles are pretty funny, but not all.  But I remember reading and hearing Fred Allen and he, along with Thorne Smith (another comedic writer of the age), often reduced me to tears with their crazy conversation and witty repartee.

These books are probably only available in library sales anymore, but are gold for the lucky bibliophile;  quite the thing for relieving depression and bitter rancor.

I wanted to post on these two books at the same time because they help me discuss a literary/philosophical subject.  Life as we humans know it is like being caught in a web whose threads are constructed from time and place.  We are prevented from analyzing the reality we live in by the constant ongoing press of time, and by the same token cannot understand aging or time because we never stay in the same place long to know what's going on.  The eternal paradox that's been addressed by authors for centuries.  I recall the Malabar caves, Plato's cave allegory, many situation and unresolutions in Shakespeare, and lots of others in all literature.  Maybe mostly in poetry.  Religions have been invented to try to stabilize the situation, but have only been effective in distracting people from the real problem, which is:  what are we doing and does it have any meaning?  Unfortunately no real answers have evolved that i'm aware of, aside from the major historical efforts to convince children and others to believe things of which there is no evidence save that of wishful thinking.  This later has been a powerful force in human history, and is a resource of comfort for many, but for the few of us who haven't experienced the joy of worship or sacrifice in one or another of the sectarian propositions, it is pretty much meaningless.  So, the point i'm trying to get at is that literature and reading in general are two of the few ways to learn about reality and the human experience that exist.  Speculation seems to be the limit of human aspiration, aside from science, which is not a medium for imagining, but a search for clues only.

So the above two books are examples of two widely varying approaches to understanding the world around us and our place in it, which is why i chose them.  The brain can do all sorts of things, but reading to expand our consciousness is one of the most effective methods of chasing the reality ghost and cheering ourselves up that I know of.  End of harangue:  apologies, if needed, for treading upon any toes...