| Page # |
Quote |
Research |
| 12 |
You can give me beef and ale |
This sounds like a quotation, but I can’t find anything. |
| 13 |
Pagan in a Pecksniffian sense |
Mr Pecksniff is a character in
Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlelwit |
| 20 |
Caldecott |
Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886)
illustrated a series of nursery rhyme books, still reproduced today. |
| 21 |
Borioboola Gha |
Dickens, Bleak House |
| 23 |
Palafox |
José de Palafox y Melzi
defended Saragossa against Napoleon in the Peninsular Wars, and was the
subject of a sonnet by Wordsworth. Portraits of him and his wife hang in the
Prado in Madrid. Gustavo Palafox was a
tennis player who represented Mexico in the Davis Cup in 1948. He may well also have played at Wimbledon,
though I have been unable to verify this.
Since the novel must have been written in 1948, AT may well be
referring to him, though she does have at least one other Wordsworth
reference in OBH. Maybe she means both
– but why use the name for a plant? |
| 24 |
Borealis |
of the north wind |
| 24 |
Septentrionalis |
means of the north |
| 25 |
Brugglesmith |
Miss Sowerby explains the
“relusion” to Mr Adams as Kipling. It
is the title of a short story of an amusing midnight adventure in the streets
of London with a drunken man, who gives Brugglesmith as his address,
interpreted by a policeman as ‘Brook Green, Hammersmith’. |
| 26 |
Briareus |
One of the sons of Uranus and
Gaea, giants who had 100 arms and 50 heads. |
| 27 |
Reverend Enoch Arden |
Name comes from Tennyson’s
poem. |
| 35 |
Joseph Vance |
William de Morgan’s first novel, his masterpiece, written
when he was 70 (the de Morgans were family friends of the Mackails). |
| 36 |
Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway |
AT and Lance took this train
and walked back to Coniston over the Wrynose and Hardknott passes when they
were staying with Nanny Kirkbride (Six Pembroke Gardens, p.24) |
| 41 |
All the charm of all the Muses |
Tennyson, To Virgil. |
| 48 |
The New Look |
much talked-about change in fashion introduced by Dior. A reaction against wartime austerity, with nipped-in waists, exaggerated hips and full, much longer skirts. ">much
talked-about change in fashion introduced by
Dior. A reaction against wartime
austerity, with nipped-in waists, exaggerated hips and full, much longer
skirts. |
| 52 |
Double Summer Time |
brought in from 1941 to 1947 –
an extra hour on to British Summer Time, making two hours ahead of Greenwich
Mean Time. |
| 65 |
Pillicock |
King Lear, Act III, scene 4. |
| 69 |
rere-tea |
A rere-supper is a meal
following on to a normal supper, usually very late at night. |
| 70 |
The Hobyahs |
from a very nasty fairy
tale. Horrid marauding imps who
marauded by night. Little dog Turpie
barked to warn the family, but the father saw nothing, and each night cut off
more bits of Turpie until he was dead.
The next night the Hobyahs came, destroyed the house, killed the
farmer and his wife, and carried off
their little girl, who was saved the next day by a neighbour’s dog, who ate
all the Hobyahs. |
| 79 |
Mutual or common |
much discussion used to take
place over this, and the fact that Dickens was incorrect in his usage for Our
Mutual Friend. |
| 81 |
Mary Carter |
Is she a character in
Trollope? And is Mrs Grantly related
to Everard Carter? |
| 83 |
Mr Miacca, Drumikin and
Lambikin |
English Fairy Tales. Like the Hobyahs, all traceable on the
internet. |
| 90 |
Too, too Mary Rose |
J M Barrie’s play of that name
– a rather fey ghost story, written in 1920, about a girl who disappears and
reappears unaware that time has passed. |
| 91 |
Cortes in Darien |
Keats On First Looking Into
Chapman’s Homer. |
| 91 |
Hobo Gobo and the Fairy
Joybell |
This is probably meant to
refer to Enid Blyton’s stories such as the Wishing Chair and the Faraway
Tree. |
| 95 |
Hermione Rivers |
Hermione Rivers is generally
thought to be Anne Bridge, whose publishers were Chatto & Windus, but I
can’t think of any connection with Bungay & Hobb, except that many books
are printed in the town of Bungay, in
Suffolk. |
| 95 |
Horace Walpole |
Horace Walpole printed his own
Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors in 1758 at Strawberry Hill. |
| 101 |
If Turnips were Watches |
from an old rhyme. ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would
ride. If turnips were watches, I’d
wear one by my side.’ |
| 101 |
Christian when he beheld the
Celestial City |
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. |
| 101 |
Nunc Dimittis |
Holy Bible St. Luke ii, 29+
(used in Evening Prayer by The Church
of England) |
| 102 |
Strakey |
Doris is confusing John
Strachey, Minister of Food in the Labour Government of 1948, with Jack
Strachey, who wrote the song These Foolish Things in 1931. AT also mentions the song in Enter Sir
Robert |
| 103 |
Massacre of the Innocents |
Slaughter
of all male children of Bethlehem by order of
Herod the Great (Matt. ii. 16) |
| 103 |
The Last of England |
Painting by Ford Madox Brown,
1857 (in the City Art Gallery, Birmingham) |
| 103 |
The Last Day in the Old Home |
Painting by Robert Braithwaite
Martineau, 1862 (in the Tate Gallery) |
| 106 |
Queen of Sheba and Jezebel |
Queen of Sheba (1 Kings x,
1-10) and Jezebel (2 Kings ix, 30).
Biblical temptresses. |
| 108 |
The dreadful word fiancée |
AT evidently thought this was
a genteelism. In Love at all ages Miss
Merriman wonders “if she ought to remove herself and her affianced till
things grew quieter”. Is this what one
is supposed to say? |
| 109 |
Greats |
A degree in Classics is called
Greats at Oxford and the Classical Tripos at Cambridge. |
| 110 |
Gampishness |
Mrs Gamp in Dickens’s Martin
Chuzzlewit. |
| 113 |
"My child Grild…..you to Walp."> |
|
| 120 |
Janissary’s walk |
Janissaries were special
troops recruited from Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire to serve the
Sultan. They had their own distinctive
marching step, to the rhythm of the words “Gracious God is good, God is
compassionate”. |
| 124 |
Florence Dombey and little
Paul - Dombey & Son; Esther, Peepy, etc |
from Dickens, Bleak House |
| 135 |
Rooshians, Turks and
Prooshians |
Gilbert & Sullivan, HMS
Pinafore. |
| 135 |
I hate foreigners and black men begin at Calais |
|
| 142 |
Hastings Pond |
Has anyone any views on which
Hollywood star this might be? An
article in the NAB Summer Bulletin 2003 claims that Glamora Tudor is Anna
Neagle, but I think this is debatable. |
| 154 |
Between the clasp of his hand
and hers… |
from The Poppy, to Monica, by
Francis Thompson. No longer in the
Oxford Book of English Verse, but it was in the 1919 edition. “But you, who
love nor know at all The diverse chambers in Love’s guest-hall, Where some
rise early, few sit long: In how differing accents hear the throng His great
Pentecostal tongue; Who know not love from amity, Nor my reported self from
me; A fair fit gift is this, meseems,
You give — this withering flower of dreams.”
And so on and so on: just the
sort of poem to appeal to a romantic teenager. |
| 155 |
The moth’s kiss: |
In a Gondola, by Robert
Browning. Though why Grace wouldn’t
have known it as it is also in the Oxford Book of English Verse, I don’t
know. Possibly because it might be
thought to be more explicitly erotic? |
| 157 |
All would be gas and gaiters |
from Dickens’s Nicholas
Nickleby |
| 158 |
Catullus, translated by Hilary
Grant |
Don’t understand this, because
in The Brandons Hilary is writing a book about the French poet Jehan le
Capet. Is she confusing him with
another lovesick young man, but I’m not sure which – not Richard Tebben and
Mrs Dean, because Richard writes his own poetry. |
| 160 |
Lemon on Running Powers |
We have been trying for ages
to track down whether Lemon on Running Powers has any significance, but with
no luck so far. (It purports to be a book on Railway Law) |
| 163 |
The Garter |
the highest order of
knighthood that can be bestowed. |
| 169 |
Sloppy’s when attending Mr
Wegg |
Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. |
| 170 |
Calling a sofa a couch and the
drawing-room the lounge |
This is reminiscent of Nancy
Mitford’s rules for U and non-U in her 1955 essay The English Aristocracy,
later included with contributions by others in Noblesse Oblige. |
| 171 |
I love my mill, it is to me,
Like parent, child and wife |
Second verse of the old song
The Miller of Dee. |
| 173 |
Cutbush & Sepal |
There was a rose breeder
called Cutbush in the 1920s. |
| 181 |
tu Marcellus eris |
from Virgil’s Aeneid “alas,
pitiable boy — if only you might break your cruel fate! — you are to be
Marcellus. Give me lilies in armfuls.” |
| 183 |
The Bullingdon |
an exclusive club for wealthy
Oxford undergraduates. |
| 187 |
Morland |
George Morland,
1763-1804. English painter who
specialised in rustic scenes. |
| 189 |
There’s a great text in
Galatians |
Browning, Soliloquy of the
Spanish Cloister. |
| 191 |
The Cat and the Mouse |
The Cat
and the Mouse in Partnership, by the Brothers
Grimm. |
| 191 |
Titty-mouse and Tatty-mouse |
Another gruesome old English
story. Arthur Ransome fans may know
that this was the story which gave Mavis Altounyan, the original for Titty,
her nickname. |
| 192 |
The Massacre of St Bartholomew |
24 August, 1572, when the
extermination of French Protestants began in Paris. |
| 202 |
The Plumpudding Flea |
Edward Lear, The History of
the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple. |
| 204 |
James and Horace Smith when
masquerading |
These two brothers wrote
novels in imitation of Sir Walter Scott. |
| 214 |
Girtin |
English romantic painter,
1775-1802. One of the founders of English watercolour painting. |
| 215 |
Highland Cattle at Bay |
Descriptive of a genre of
Victorian painting. Landseer’s
painting is of The Stag at Bay – many others of the period feature Highland
cattle. |
| 217 |
An exposition of sleep |
“I have an exposition of sleep
come upon me” Bottom, in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. |
| 217 |
As the mariner cast by
Poseidon’s wrath…. |
This mock-Homeric passage
embraces both Poseidon, god of the sea, and Io, one of Jupiter’s conquests
who was changed into a beautiful heifer. |
| 220 |
On his sleeve for daws to peck
at |
Iago in Othello. |
| 220 |
Dr Mesmer |
An Austrian physician who
popularised hypnotism in the 18th century. |
| 221 |
Have we no cheers? |
We think this must be a play
on “cheers” and “chairs” in one of Pinero’s plays, but cannot trace it. |
| 222 |
This close-compassioned,
inarticulate hour |
From Silent Noon, by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti. |
| 223 |
I am a rogue and vagabond and
the Theatre is my master |
This looks like a quotation
but we cannot trace it. |
| 224 |
Burnt Njal |
From an Icelandic saga, a
favourite with the Mackail and Thirkell children. Oddly enough this one is not from the
William Morris’s translation but Sir George Dasent’s Njala. |
| 226 |
Thomas Gray |
Thomas Gray was buried in
Stoke Poges, and the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is identified with
it. It is written in a b a b form, not couplets. |
| 228 |
The Transit of Venus |
This is an astronomical
phenomenon, a form of eclipse, but surely AT is referring to a painting. There is a painting of The Passing of Venus
by Burne-Jones in the Junior Common Room of Exeter College, Oxford, showing
Venus sitting on what looks like a coffin-shaped flying saucer supported by
wings, which would fit the bill nicely. |
| 230 |
Mazzini |
a 19th century Italian patriot
active in the liberation of Italy. |
| 231 |
And in the course of one
revolving moon…. |
from Dryden’s Absalom and
Achitophel. |
| 241 |
Cerberus |
three-headed dog which guarded
the entrance to hell. |
| 243 |
Muttoned into the infinite |
Paul Verlaine, Sagesse –
“L’échelonnement des haies moutonne à l’infinie.” Difficult to translate without sounding
silly, but the nearest I can get is “hedges drawn up in ranks like flocks of
clouds stretching away into infinity.” |
| 244 |
Nandy |
A Mr Nandy appears in
Dickens’s Little Dorrit. |
| 245 |
Northfield |
Should be Northbridge. |
| 246 |
Quickset Combination |
Any significance in this? |
| 270 |
SPQR |
Senatus Populusque Romanus
(Senate and People of Rome): This was
used as an emblem by the Roman army on their battle standards |
| 274 |
Sighed as a father and obeyed
as a friend |
Sighed as a father and obeyed
as a friend. Possibly a parody on
Edward Gibbon’s ”I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son” |
| 276 |
Annals of the Parish |
Novel by Galt, published 1821,
chronicling the lives of villagers in Dalmeny, Ayrshie, from 1760-1810. |
| 279 |
Croke Hoskiss |
Any
ideas on which Hollywood star is meant? |
| 279 |
Morgan ap Kerrig country |
Mrs Woodcourt used to tell
Esther Summerson tales of Morgan ap Kerrig in Bleak House. Cannot trace any reference to him having
been associated with any part of Wales. |
| 280 |
Polly, Lucy, Macheath |
Characters in Gay’s The
Beggar’s Opera, 1728. |
| 282 |
Miss Best |
This should of course be Miss
Bent! |
| 283 |
Forty feeding like one |
“The cattle are grazing, Their
heads never raising, There are forty feeding like one.” Wordsworth, Written in March. |
| 283 |
Tough meat and grey gravy |
I can’t find this anywhere. |
| 285 |
We could an if we would |
Shakespeare, Hamlet |
| 290 |
I like the hussy |
Cannot find this but it
appears to be Dickens. |
| 291 |
be a kitten and cry Mew |
Shakespeare, Henry IV pt I |
| 291 |
Suovetaurilia |
The Romans had a form of
sacrifice involving a pig (sus), a sheep (ovis) and a bull (taurus). |
| 293 |
Whirled round in earth’s
diurnal course |
“Rolled round in earth’s
diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees.” Wordsworth, A Slumber did my Spirit Seal. |
| 294 |
The Great San Philip |
Tennyson, The Revenge, a
Ballad of the Fleet. |
| 294 |
Moving as Etna may have moved
when Enceladus turned |
Enceladus another of the giant
sons of Uranus and Gaea who conspired against Jupiter, who hurled a
thunderbolt at him. He was buried under a piece of land which became
Sicily. Every time he turns Mount Etna
erupts. |
| 295 |
Charles Fanshawe reading
Virgil to the Australians |
Could this be based on Dr.
Mackail’s lectures to Australian universities in 1923? |
| 299 |
Lucina |
Roman goddess of childbirth |
| 300 |
St Grantly Chrysostom |
St John Chrysostom
(golden-mouthed) was so-called because of his eloquence. |
| 300 |
The abomination of desolation |
Matthew 24: 15-20, foretelling
the coming of the Antichrist and the end of the world. |
| 300 |
Fishpools of Hebron |
Either the Pool of Hebron, 2 Samuel 4:12,
or the fishpools of Heshbon Song of Solomon 7:4. If you look these up you will see why Canon
Bostock’s meaning was unclear. |
| 301 |
Blind mouths |
That scarce themselves know
how to hold/A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least/That to the
faithful herdsman’s art belongs.
Milton, Lycidas |
| 301 |
The grasshopper is a burden |
Ecclesiastes xi.6. |
| 301 |
Bread of affliction |
I Kings 22:27, |
| 301 |
Bread of idleness |
Proverbs 3 1:27. |
| 302 |
Ingans |
onions (Scottish dialect) |
| 303 |
Ride your ways, Laird of
Rushwater |
“Ride your ways, Ellangowan”,
said by Meg Merrilies the gypsy in Sir Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering. Interesting that AT brings in the
Ellangowans as relations of Christopher Hornby. |
| 305 |
As if one had swallowed an
alarm clock |
cf. the crocodile in Peter
Pan. |
| 308 |
Man’s ingratitude |
Shakespeare, As You Like It.
(Blow, blow, thou winter wind) |
| 312 |
Only the actions of the just,
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust |
James Shirley (1596-1666),
Death the Leveller. |
| 315 |
When her ladyship took up
enamelling |
In Lady Mary Elcho’s
sitting-room at Stanway there is an enamel commemorating the deaths of her
sons in WWI, which may or may not have been by Ernestine Mills, the
suffragette artist. Highly likely that
Lady Mary, who was the original of Lady Emily, did take up enamelling
herself. |
| 317 |
Drowned in a butt of Malmsey |
George, Duke of Clarence, son
of Richard Duke of York, was said to have been put to death in the tower in
1478 by being drowned in a butt of malmsey (a very sweet wine). |
| 321 |
How Mamma painted pictures in
all the corners of the nursery so that if she was put in a corner for being
naughty she would not feel dull |
See AT’s description of
Burne-Jones doing this for her at North End House in Three Houses. |
| 332 |
Emperor’s Gate or Observatory
Gardens. Streets in Kensington, built
of red brick similar to the Albert Hall |
Victorian architecture had not
yet come into fashion again when this was written in 1948. |
| 333 |
Expertae crede |
means believe one who has
tried it. |
| 333 |
I have forgot my Latin, as
Miss Harriette Wilson once wrote. |
AT wrote The Fortunes of
Harriette, the life of the courtesan Harriette Wilson, in 1932. |
| 336 |
A laggard in love and a
dastard in war |
Sir Walter Scott, Young Lochinvar |
| 337 |
St Aella’s Home for
Stiff-necked Clergy |
Is this in Trollope? Aella was a Saxon swineherd who refused to
drive pigs in Lent, was slain by the monastery bailiff and canonized. |
| 338 |
Were Your Public Activities
Really Necessary: there was a poster
in wartime with the slogan Is Your Journey Really Necessary. |
there was a poster in wartime
with the slogan Is Your Journey Really Necessary. |
| 339 |
The Wolf has gone to
Devonsheer |
An old children’s playground
game. The players stand in a row at
one end of the lawn while the shepherdess stands at the other. Half-way
between the wolf must be concealed behind a bush. The shepherdess then calls
out: "Sheep, sheep, come home!" One of the sheep replies: "I'm
afraid of the wolf!" The shepherdess then says: "The wolf has gone
to Devonshire and won't be home for seven years; sheep, sheep, come
home!" The sheep then singly try to reach the shepherdess without being
caught by the wolf. And so the game continues till all the players have
either been caught by the wolf or reached the shepherdess safely. |
| 342 |
Bold-faced jig |
from an old rhyme Cock Robin
and Jenny Wren. The last verse
reads: Robin he was angry, And hopped
upon a twig, Saying “Out upon you, fie upon you, Bold faced jig!” |
| 345 |
King Lear’s hysterica passio |
Hysterica passio, down, thou
climbing sorrow, Thy element’s below.
King Lear, Act ii, Sc 4. hysteria which causes choking, shortness of
breath, thought to rise up from the stomach or womb; "hysterica
passio" is the Latin medical term. |
| 348 |
Yin, twa, three |
Old Scottish nursery rhyme. |
| 351 |
Ravenshoe |
Novel by Henry Kingsley, younger brother of Charles. |
| 355 |
the oak under which Anne Page
met Master Fenton and Falstaff |
Shakespeare, The Merry Wives
of Windsor. |
| 358 |
Horatius |
Lays of Ancient Rome, by Lord
Macaulay. It begins “Lars Porsena of
Clusium, By the nine gods he swore”, and is a very long poem which precocious
little prep-school boys tended to know by heart. |
| 358 |
Romany Rye |
Sequel to Lavengro, by George
Borrow. It means “gipsy gentleman”. |
| 365 |
Sir Tunbelly Clumsy |
a character in Vanbrugh’s The
Relapse and Sheridan’s A Trip to Scarborough. |
| 367 |
Cold Comfort Farm |
a novel by AT’s friend Stella
Gibbons. A parody of Mary Webb’s
Shropshire novels such as Precious Bane. |
| 375 |
Sparrowhill Camp |
Larkhill, is or was in real
life an army training camp on Salisbury Plain. |
| 386 |
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary |
by M R James |
| 386 |
Les Mohicans de Paris |
The first French novelist who
presented a police officer favourably was Alexandre Dumas: when he wrote Les
Mohicans de Paris in 1854/55. This book introduced Police detective Monsieur
Jackal, who was remarkable for his introduction into the language the phrase
“Cherchez la femme!" |
| 387 |
the opera Salome |
by Richard Strauss |
| 353/354 |
Mother Goose |
see AT Society booklet,
Christmas 2003. AT wrote Mother Goose,
a Literary Review, for the London Mercury in May 1932. |
| 97, 274 |
Laocöon |
he was a priest of Apollo
whose two sons were attacked by two enormous serpents. He was squeezed to death trying to defend
them. There is a famous statue
depicting this in the Vatican, dating from 2nd century BC. |
