The rain it rains

I can't stop watching the images of the Queensland floods.  As well as being sad and strange, it's astonishing to see a familiar landscape completely transfigured by water. Many of the photos look serene, but under the surface there has been destruction. After these extraordinary waters recede, there will be much to do.

It's a cliche but it's undeniably true about Australians that we stare down adversity and face devastation on this scale with an unflinching pragmatism. The images of kids paddling while adults shoulder eskies, sofas, dogs and bikes through chest-high water are heartening.

I like this poem “Floods” by Rudyard Kipling because of the truth of its observation: “what is weak will surely go, / And what is strong must prove it so.” Also the hopefulness of the ending. The floods are destructive now, but they do end a twenty-year drought and promise better years to come for our rivers and fields.

The rain it rains without a stay
In the hills above us, in the hills;
And presently the floods break way
Whose strength is in the hills.
The trees they suck from every cloud,
The valley brooks they roar aloud--
Bank-high for the lowlands, lowlands,
Lowlands under the hills!

The first wood down is sere and small,
From the hills, the brishings off the hills;
And then come by the bats and all
We cut last year in the hills;
And then the roots we tried to cleave
But found too tough and had to leave--
Polting through the lowlands, lowlands,
Lowlands under the hills!

The eye shall look, the ear shall hark
To the hills, the doings in the hills,
And rivers mating in the dark
With tokens from the hills.
Now what is weak will surely go,
And what is strong must prove it so.
Stand fast in the lowlands, lowlands,
Lowlands under the hills!

The floods they shall not be afraid--
Nor the hills above 'em, nor the hills--
Of any fence which man has made
Betwixt him and the hills.
The waters shall not reckon twice
For any work of man's device,
But bid it down to the lowlands, lowlands,
Lowlands under the hills!

The floods shall sweep corruption clean--
By the hills, the blessing of the hills--
That more the meadows may be green
New-amended from the hills.
The crops and cattle shall increase,
Nor little children shall not cease--
Go--plough the lowlands, lowlands,
Lowlands under the hills!

Yours etc

Further meditations on Sense and Sensibility made me think about how letters drive the story. A letter from Sir John spirits the Dashwoods from Norland to Barton; a letter from Eliza Williams impels Colonel Brandon from Devonshire to London, and precipitates Willoughby's ultimate downfall; letters between Marianne and Willoughby are a revelation to Elinor as well as a catastrophic eruption, in the relationship between M and W, and in that between W and his fiancee.  Mirroring Brandon's unhappy receipt of Eliza's letter while in company, Willoughby receives Marianne's letter while he is breakfasting with his new in-laws, and the truth of his perfidy is outed again, this time to his own shame, instead of to his victim's. Lucy's letters, more than her conversation, reveal how “ignorant, illiterate and artful” she is, and how unworthy to be Edward's wife; Elinor is struggling with the composition of her letter to Edward - a letter that must be extremely painful to both - when he walks in on her and begins their most exquisitely awkward and yet most tender and revelatory exchange.

Probably in the other novels, too, letters are important, but in this novel about painful suppression and unspoken feelings, they are all the more necessary as touchstones of emotion and instruments of action.

Googling

Google's unresting laboratories have come up with a database you can use to track words, phrases, concepts through hundreds of years worth of literature. I'm still not convinced that this is useful, but like many another app it's certainly fun in a frivolous kind of way. The Ngram Viewer allows you to search multiple terms within set periods (say 1800 - 1950) so you can compare their rates of usage in a wide range of books.  My early experiments with it haven't proved particularly fruitful, but no doubt the user rather than the technology is at fault.

Wikipedia tells me that “An n-gram is a subsequence of n items from a given sequence. The items in question can be phonemes, syllables, letters, words or base pairs according to the application.” Wikipedia also warns me that “The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject” and invites me to improve it. If I knew what an n-gram was I probably would.

On Sense and Sensibility

I have to confess that I enjoyed this one less on this reading. It seems to me the most bitter and most editorialising of all her books. They all have an argument of sorts to make, but this one involves more direct and repeated attack than the others. Marianne and her mother's sensibility is not always allowed to expose itself, but draws the ire and commentary of the author time after time. Though Elinor can sometimes appear unfeeling, and principled to the point of pedantry, there is no acknowledgement from the author of these faults. She is  held up, and the others put down, more than is necessary or agreeable to the reader.  Marianne's repentance and conversion is perhaps a little too total to retrieve the novel from the realms of a morality tale.

However, the minor characters in this novel are so well and simply drawn that there is no arguing with them. Lady Middleton “had nothing to say one day that she had not said the day before” - how damning! yet how commonplace.  Mrs Jennings and Sir John make an endearing team: “With the assistance of his mother-in-law, Sir John was not long in discovering that the name of Ferrars began with an F. and this prepared a future mine of raillery against the devoted Elinor.” 

But in Robert Ferrars I think we have one of the finest comic creations of all. We meet him first when he is ordering a jewelled toothpick case, and naming “the last day on which his existence could be continued without the possession” of it. When Elinor dances with him, he talks of his enthusiasm for cottages, and the valuable architectural assistance he rendered to a friend:

“My friend Lord Courtland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice, and laid before me three different plans of Bonomi's. I was to decide on the best of them. ‘My dear Courtland,’ said I, immediately throwing them all into the fire, ‘do not adopt either of them, but by all means build a cottage.’” And finally, when he learns of Edward's intention to take orders, he laughs “immoderately.” “The idea of Edward's being a clergyman, and living in a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure;—and when to that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a white surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith and Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.” Austen's contempt for such a fop is palpable and delicious.

I should also mention how much I love the 1995 Ang Lee movie, for which Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay. Though it contains many additions and departures, it is a gorgeous realisation, made with more art and insight than many of the more faithful adaptations. Kate Winslet as Marianne is simply perfect.

A brittle heaven

Enough of Christmas - the new year is upon us, and Christmas is again a year away. I thought this poem by Emily Dickinson was apt for anyone meditating new year's resolutions as I am.  This time of year always fills me with hopes, always convinces me that there is a centre toward which my life will at last converge. Usually lasts till about March.

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
To touch,

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints' slow diligence
The sky!

Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.