A Thousand Shades of Twilight

He rhymed "kith" with "with" - Dreadful compositions by an alleged poet

 

The title and photo above are lifted directly from the overwrought pages of that esteemed journal of all things bizarre and deliciously ill-fated, 'Parade' magazine.

The career of Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate from 1896 to 1913 'was a hilarious interlude of parody, mockery and laughter unrivalled in literary annals.' According to 'Parade', 'Malign Fate' and 'A cynical Prime Minister who could think of no one else' conspired to get him the job. Every morning when I awake I give thanks to the Lord that I am not a Poet Laureate. It does not sound like much of a job and from all accounts is still poorly paid. Who would be a Poet Laureate, then? Alfred Austin would! So much so that he threw in a legal career to pursue his dream.

Many of us would be deterred from such a dream if our first volume of poetry only sold 17 copies. But not Alfred. When his second volume, a satire of the Mayfair marriage market, was slated by the critics, he responded with a 'pompous bad tempered pamphlet called 'My satire and its critics'. He always came out swinging, did our Alfred. He decided Browning was 'muddy', Swinburne produced 'mere babble,' Tennyson would be 'handed over to the dust as soon as the generation came to its senses'. Dickens was 'surrounded by a flimsy brood of servile admirers.' Although Alfred clearly recognised that bunch of ne'erdowell flybynights for what they were, they were not impressed. Swinburne referred to Alfred as 'that creature' while Tennyson went one better by ignoring him completely.

That said, once Tennyson, despite his obvious literary shortcomings, somehow managed to become a peer, Alfred decided his friendship was worth cultivating. So he 'tried' to give Tennyson a leaf. Always works for me, I have found. Ok, it was not just any leaf. It was allegedly a 'laurel leaf from the ancient Greek shrine of Delphi.' You will note that 'Parade' is enigmatically silent on whether or not Alfred actually ever succeeded in his leaf-giving attempts.

Alfred's next project was a long narrative poem (is that the tinkling of alarm bells I hear?) entitled 'The Human Tragedy'. It took him a good twenty years to complete and is by all accounts, unreadable. Its apt title should not remain unremarked upon.

He also embarked on a career as a failed Tory politician before deciding that the 'hurly burly of the hustings' was too much for his 'rare spirit'. Thankfully for us, he chose instead to concentrate instead on his deathless poetry and pamphleteering, proceeding to churn out '20 volumes of atrocious verse in the next 30 years.' Somehow, he managed to win friends in high places, with Queen Victoria declaring his work 'delightful'. He dedicated a poem to her, mystifyingly called 'Prince Lucifer'. Perhaps it reminded her of Albert.

Then, after Tennyson dropped off the perch, there was a vacuum of three years where no suitable Poet Laureate could be found. Eventually, given his presence in the good books of the Queen and his unimpeachable reactionary politics, he was appointed Poet Laureate by Lord Salisbury. Lord Salisbury remarked that the only reason why he suggested Alfred for the job was that 'he wanted it'. It may have also had something to do with the sonnet Alfred penned for the Lord:

'Great, wise and good, too near for men to know, til years shall pass, how good, how wise, how great.'

Dear Alfred, with customary insight and modesty, was not at all surprised by his appointment: 'It is simply recognition of my place at the head of English Literature', he responded.

As for the rest of English society, it greeted Alfred's appointment with 'a chorus of mingled contempt, derision and ribald laughter.' The laughter grew louder when Alfred published a patriotic verse drama all about - who else- King Alfred the Great. It was called 'England's Darling'. To say, as 'Parade' does, that the critics seized on it with delight is, no doubt, an understatement.

Alfred then banged on for many more years, inciting all manner of racial hatred with his jingoistic doggerel and 'flatulent odes'. He never achieved the peerage he so brazenly craved, and his ultimate and inevitable decline in popularity almost led to the abolition of the post of Poet Laureate altogether.

In closing then, a fitting tribute would be a few words from the man himself. And if you can make head or tail of it, you are a better person than I am:

Will you, I round it willingly can guide you;

Unless-and told, shall fully understand-

Wander you rather would with none beside you.

The scheming murderous charlatan who was too canny to set herself up as a witch

 

Ah, 'Parade' Magazine of November 1969! Just where WOULD we all be without your impartial, gimlet-eyed veracity? Here, for your delectation, is the grubby little tale of Mary Bateman. Yes, that is correct - Mary Bateman. You will see that 'Parade's' budget did not extend to including a happy snap of said subject, but rather, a rather grim sketch of one of her inspirations. It is a bit like accompanying a story about Bob Dylan with a snap of Woody Guthrie. There is a certain logic to it I guess.

Apparently charlatan prophetesses were a dime a dozen in those olden days. These women had names like Joanna Southcott. And Mother Shipton. But none could hold a witchy candle to that dreaded 'human octopus' Mary Bateman, 'one of the most vicious charlatans of an age of charlatans'!

('Oh, goodie!', I hear you say, as you exhale with delight and rub your palms with glee).

According to 'Parade', 'Mary Bateman, the murderous witch, as her enemies called her, was born at Topcliffe in Yorkshire, in the mid 1770s, to  honest peasant parents.' Clearly, honesty was not a hereditary trait. The young Mary wasted no time in pilfering her way through York to Leeds, where she set herself up as a dressmaker with a sideline in Sooth. 'One of those who asked Mary Bateman to foretell the future was the wheelwright John Bateman, a simple-minded yokel, who before he realised what was happening, found himself married to the plump and comely dressmaker.'  Before he realised it, eh? The accursed witchery of it all!

The marriage was ill-fated, and lasted but a brief moment. This may have had to do with the fact that John's simpleminded yokeldom clearly got the better of him. He popped out one day, only to find that, when he returned, everything of value in the family home had been sold. It happens. His comely dressmaker wifey, meanwhile, had gotten herself to a boarding house, where she wiled away many a dull hour by stealing from her fellow lodgers. Hey, a gal's gotta eat, does she not?

Mary soon decided that her cosy little 'love philtre, charms and horoscope' business could do with a little boost. So she did what any of us would do in her situation. She 'invented' a woman called, wait for it, Mrs. Moore. Mrs Moore obliged customers with an offer to carry out a quaint custom which she called 'screwing down'. 'Screwing down' was invariably accompanied by a request for gold coinage. When the hapless victim could not come up with the lolly, Mrs Moore would 'thunder' socially-awkward truths back at them such as 'Your husband will be dead before morning!'. So there. An unfortunate but well-meaning Mrs Greenwood, in fact, stole gold coins to save her jailbird husband. I am not sure what happened to her husband. But I do know that Mrs G was 'rounded up by the local authorities and condemned to life imprisonment'. Mary Bateman, meanwhile busied herself with scramming.

Then there was another hapless victim, a Mrs Snead who requested the 'screwing down' of her husband's mistress. Needless to say, it ended badly for all concerned, with Mrs Snead drowning herself. I must confess that I only mention this incident at all because it involves someone called 'Snead'. I am quite sure you understand.

Mary then disposed of two spinster sisters called Kitchen who sought her help with their ailing drapery business. Clearly it was not just the drapery that ailed when Mary Bateman came to help. If that was not enough, when the Kitchens' 95 year old mother came to town for the funeral, she mysteriously shuffled off in a matter of weeks. Mary then helpfully told anyone who asked that the Kitchens Three had died of The Plague. This bought her enough time to sell off everything of value in the Kitchens' drapery business. Because, quite understandably, even the Kitchens' creditors chose to avoid their house. Like the plague, it has to be said.

Dusting off her hands with satisfaction, Mary then decided it was time to become a fanatical churchgoer. Alas, it was not to repent that she went to Church. She was simply following in the deceitful footsteps of her beloved Joanna Southcott. Simultaneously, her reputation as a mystic grew, as was borne out by the good folks of the district insisting that her favourite hen laid  'a huge egg bearing a religious inscription'. Knowing Mary, I assume she crushed the shell with her foot and deliriously dribbled yolk down her chin while laughing like Beelzebub himself. But do not quote me on that. I did not read it in 'Parade' magazine. Surprising as that is.

Mary, via the redoubtable Mrs Moore, then fleeced a couple called The Snowdons who were distraught at the prospect that their beloved son had drowned at sea. After snatching the usual gold coin tribute, she quite sensibly told the Snowdons that they must leave Leeds immediately 'to save their daughter from the life of a harlot'! Now, what that has to do with being drowned at sea eludes me. But the 'simple-minded' Snowdons clearly saw some wisdom in it. Unfortunately for Mary, however, they had a few uncomfortable questions before they departed. Questions about the use to which gold coinage was put. Mary (ominously for them, it must be said) agreed to their demands, but indicated that there was a special potion that needed drinking before anyone did anything and thoughtfully skipped off to fetch it.

Fortunately for the Snowdons, Mary never did return with that potion, having been arrested, put on trial and hanged as a witch instead. Rather feeble as far as excuses go for leaving the Snowdons stranded like that, but, as Joe E Brown once said, well, nobody's perfect. Apparently Mary chose the moment after the guilty verdict was delivered to announce she was pregnant. It would appear that she was labouring under the mistaken belief that a bun in the oven could spare one from the gallows. Alas for her, no one seemed to care about her or, indeed, her alleged bun. She apparently was asked if she would say a few final words by the hangman, but he got tired of her endless harangue. And, rather discourteously, 'topped her off' midstream.

Despite her ignoble end, Mary had many 'disciples' who maintained that 'all will be well when Mary returns'. I do not know if that return would involve anyone whooshing skywards in a showy and dramatic fashion, but that is by-the-by. Mary denied that she was a witch right up until the end. And, granted, there appears to have been nothing particularly mystical about the fact that when her house was searched, the police found 'a wide range of lethal poisons' and a whole shipload of stolen goods, some of which were clearly draperies of the Kitchen variety. 

So, in closing as you may know, I am all for keeping an open mind and all. And the hanging of anyone as a witch appals me. But I must say that I cannot ignore the niggling voice that wakes me in the middle of the night and purrs:

'Maybe, just maybe, Mary Bateman was not, in fact, a witch. Nor was she the Messiah. No! Rather, perhaps, she was  just a very naughty girl...'*

 

*I always swore I would not be a person that quoted Monty Python. Mea Culpa. Mary made me do it.

The crank who spent many years advertising for a wife

 

(Image shows a detail from the cover painting from Columbia Records Mendelssohn's Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream, date and designer unknown. The painting is taken from a photo by Angus McBean from the 1949 Stratford-upon-Avon production.)

According to the esteemed, incisive "Parade" magazine, it can be a tough gig coming from an old family. Take, for example, 'the mad Dinelys of Worcestershire' who 'slumped from ancient greatness to obscurity and finally extinction' and who 'seemed to have all their eccentrics concentrated into fewer than fifty years. Among the last generation of this long line of baronets were a murderer, a wife-beater, a madman and the last of the Dinelys, Sir John, a crank who spent many years advertising for a wife'. The type of folks, in other words, that make me gasp "oh goodie!" and wring my hands with unbridled relish. 

The Mad Dinelys, of course, make me feel well-pleased about my own family. We may be superficially eccentric (and please do not forget that I have an Uncle by marriage who tried to build a cinema in his backyard) but, unlike those kooky Worcestershire-niks, we have generally kept our (ample) noses clean and never maimed, beat or killed anyone. That I know of. As for the unspeakable crime of advertising for a partner? Well, how shall I put it - it was a long time ago, and I met some perfectly nice chaps but nothing ever came of it. Anyway, enough about me.

For one reason and another, by the eighteenth century, the direct line of the Mad Dinelys had expired, with the sister of the last Baronet having the pesky title and estates foisted on her. Sister Dinely dutifully married a baronet, Sir Edward Goodyere, with whom she spawned, thus passing on the title to their eldest son, Sir John Dinely-Goodyere. Sir John, in turn, dutifully married a lady who whose twin assets were (stop it) her great beauty and a sizeable dowry. Lady Dinely-Goodyere, however, found country life a yawn and felt she had no choice but to embark on a torrid affair with a fellow toff whose surname was Jason (I know, I thought that only Australians were called Jason too. It is rather an odd name, a bit like being called Mr Phil, Mr Ian or Mr Trev, really).

Despite giving Lady Dinely-Goodyere the father of a hiding and winning 500 pounds from Sir Jason for seduction, the liaison continued. Sir John then somehow managed to get his wife sent to jail for a year on the flimsy pretext that she was plotting to kill him. When Sir John tried  to divorce the wanton jailbird, he was refused by The House of Lords and was furious to discover that his younger brother, Sam had conducted his wife's spirited defence. Now, Sam was quite open about his real motivation: he wanted to stop Sir John from spawning further and producing another heir. Sir John retaliated by cutting Sam out of his will. Sam went one better and had Sir John murdered. Unfortunately for Sam he could not resist undertaking one final search of the fresh corpse and was sprung. Which led to he hims being strung up on a gibbet at the (amusingly named) Hot Wells in Bristol. That cursed hot potato of a baronetcy then passed to the fiendish Sam's eldest son, Edward who, somewhat ungraciously, went insane and died.

All this is, of course an entree to the real story of the Crank Who Spent Many Years Advertising For a Wife,  Edward's younger brother whose name was, inconveniently for our purposes, Sir John. The Crank promptly spent most of the much-dissipated Mad Dinely money, mortgaged the estates and set out to catch himself a wife who would in turn provide an heir, yessirree.

By all accounts, The Crank initially set his sights too high, seeking a woman 'ardent, beautiful and sufficiently wealthy enough to restore his estates'. Sensibly, he soon cut his losses and dropped the first two requirements but failed to be deluged by dispassionate, unnattractive Lady-Tycoons. Despite his continued lack of success, however, the wolf was kept from the door by his rich relatives introducing him to the Chief dispenser of bribes, who also answered to 'Prime Minister'. The PM gave the Crank a pension and a free house which in turn gave the Crank the freedom to wander about looking for a spouse while garbed in last century's fashion and brandishing an over-sized umbrella.

The Crank tried nearly every trick in the book: helpfully advising that candidates could apply singly or en masse at his house; suggesting that candidates need not let false delicacy interrupt you in this divine race for my eternal love and an infant baronet; giving all misses in their teens a month's warning to marry him in light of the fact that three widows and old maids all aged above 50 are now pulling caps for me. Further, 'to dispel fears that he might be thought an old roue in search of simply a bedmate, Sir John announced that he had terminated the employment of a serving-maid.'

To prove that he was still fit enough to father a child (which, lest we forget, was the whole purpose of this sorry enterprise) he had a portrait drawn to prove that he was still capable of perambulation, if nothing else.(Please note that that portait was, in fact, included in the Parade article but, call me an aesthete, call me a snob: I decided that a lurid painting of a pretty girl getting hot and heavy with a friendly ass was more pleasing to the eye.)

All of the Crank's wandering, deep bowing and handing out of pamphlets was, alas, to no avail (although he did manage an assignation with a young male blade who thought it great sport to dress as a girl and lure The Crank to an address so that his mate could empty a bucket of slops over the poor, satorially-challenged, umbrella-toting old suitor. Cruel. But, what else is a young male blade with a penchant for cross-dressing and scat to do in a pre-internet age?).

Needless to say, it did not end well for the Last of the Mad Dinelys. For once, I will let Parade have the final word on the old grifter's demise:

'His later matrimonial advertisements invariably began:

"As the prospects of marriage have much increased lately..."

And they were still increasing when the last of the Dinelys died in November 1809'...

 

A disaster brought about by a combination of mere trivialities

While not necessarily as extreme a case of rise and fall as is usually featured in these august pages (i.e. no one dies dramatically. Well, everyone dies, but you know what I mean), who can help but be moved by the sad tale of a man whose life was marred by a combination of mere trivialities - trivial obstinancies, trivial attitudes, trivial rages, and that most trivial of infirmities, pride? My source for this tale is the ever-calm and clear-eyed PEOPLE Magazine from 14 March, 1962.

According to an article by Anthony Praga, marriage for Edward Bulwer, first Lord Lytton, was a disaster that destroyed his homelife, broke his heart and all but ruined his career. Apart from that, of course, it was a real hoot. .

Apparently, while the young Ed may have had intellect and yearning above his years his heart was in no way superior to them. He first fell madly in love while still a young'un. He later said of his paramour: we believed, with our whole hearts and souls that we were born for each other and that nothing could ever separate us..

Wrong! She promptly married someone else before inconveniently dropping off the perch.

He was plunged into deep melancholy, which was not helped any by him receiving a bizarre letter from beyond the grave in which she asked him to visit her final resting place.  However, Ed soon brightened and had a brief and fruitless adventure with a gypsy girl whose name he never bothered to learn but will be remembered by posterity as "Mimy".

Now. "Mimy" sounds kinda fun. He crossed her palm with silver (no that's not a euphemism for anything saucy) and she told his fortune (nor is that). She wasted no time in proposing a gypsy marriage. It was to be for five years only, and was to be sealed by the breaking together of a piece of burnt earth. Sounds eminently sensible to me.

Alas, however, in the midst of his not unnatural hesitations, the young men about the camp became jealous and threatening so Bulwer was forced to leave.

Ed then filled in some time by enjoying a boyish and superficial intrigue with the notorious Lady Caroline Lamb and embarking on a project for marrying a French girl of illustrious name and attractive fortune, both dalliances to no avail. No, instead, the next important personal event in his life was the calamity of his marriage, with its private and public humiliations.

He met Rosina Wheeler at a party to which (ominously) he had been accompanied by his mother. Rosina had had a romantic and unhappy childhood, having been at once the offspring and victim of an absurd boy and girl marriage. Apparently, she was determined to take from life all that it could give her of happiness, and with that determination there was mingled a slight coarseness of fibre that might, in those nineteenth century times, just pass for unconventionality. Ed, on the other hand, had been educated at private schools and in circumstances that encouraged him to behave as though he was the centre of the cosmos.

Marriage was soon discussed but Ed's Mother would not hear of it. The young lovers' passion was at fever-heat and fanned by a wind that never fails to inflame desire - the wind of parental opposition. They were on again and off again and then Rosina got sick and, somewhat mysteriously, they became something more than an unofficially engaged couple.

That which led to the end followed fast. Bulwer and Rosina married and Bulwer's mother behaved like a fool. She cut off his money. She chose, when she could do no good, to do harm. Her act may count as the first great destructive triviality in this tragedy of triviality.

Then, in what appears to be a familiar story, Ed began to live furiously beyond his means, and he and Rosina began to get on each others' nerves. Majorly. Meanwhile, in the background sat Mrs Bulwer-Lytton in stony folly. 

Things went from bad to worse. Rosina sent Ed an insulting letter, accusing him of infidelity. In a fit of righteous indignation, Ed filed for divorce. There was one catch in all of this, however. Rosina actually had grounds for her accusation although she did not know it. She sent Ed an abject apology.

Ed, gracious as ever, considered relenting, but Rosina launched a fresh tirade, this time based on an unfortunate misunderstanding. She had found two teacups on a tray and her husband's dressing gown on a chair. She assumed it was a woman's cloak. Ed explained that it was his dressing gown and the teacup belonged to his friend Fred. Nothing at all suspicious about that, then. So they split.

But troubles were not over yet. For thereafter, bitter hatred possessed Rosina, a hatred that stopped at no public disgrace in its hunger for revenge. She libelled her husband in books and in the Press, and she pursued him to political meetings and denounced him openly. Her hatred became a true mania and excessive drinking increased her derangement, until at last, poor and forgotten, she died. But she outlived her husband. All because of one lousy teacup.

Ed, on the other hand became a peer, baron, Colonial Secretary and author of The Last Days of Pompeii. But all of his triumphs were embittered by the poison of a dead passion that rose out of its grave in a new and dreadful shape of hatred.

So, the moral of this grubby little tale? Next time a gyspy offers you a burned piece of earth, grab it. Grab it with both hands.

 

The Tale of the Ignorant, Dull-witted Monarch and the Sombre Cardinal

I am trying to find out a bit more about, you know, history and stuff. I seemed to have avoided European history at school, which is a bit of a shame, really. As I am tired of attempting to disguise the alarming holes in my knowledge, please indulge me as I brush up on the very things you've all known for years.

Here's a picture of Louis XIII looking sly, useless and decadent. Yet again, my source for the information below is the ever-objective and reliable "Parade" Magazine from October 1976:

"When, after 23 years of barren marriage, the neurotic, distrustful King Louis XIII of France sired a son in 1638 and thus ensured the succession of his dynasty, he made probably his sole contribution to one of the most momentous periods in his country's history.

Otherwise, he was a cipher - ignorant, dull-witted, absorbed in his simple passions for hunting horses, dogs and any handsome young courtier who was not too scrupulous about how he acquired the royal favor.

Fortunately France's destiny did not depend on a monarch who spent his days hunting wild boar or watching harnessed dogs haul toy cannons across the palace courtyard."

The article goes on to describe the somewhat sado-masochistic relationship between Louis and the 'sombre, scarlet-robed' Cardinal Richelieu.

Louis's travails began at an early age. He was 9 when his father was assassinated leaving the regency to his mother, 'the fat, coarse and sensual Marie De Medici'. What hope did he have? Once a Medici, always a Medici, as I always say.

Louis later had an 'empty formality' of a wedding to Princess Anne. Of Austria (not the horsey one). Though Anne was a 'lively full-blooded girl' , Louis preferred peeling vegetables in  the kitchen and playing with toy soldiers to schtupping his lively full-blooded bride.

Then there was this weird period where the Fat Medici's fancy man got killed and she fled to Angeloume, leaving the Royal Falconer in charge of, well, the whole of France. This is when the sombre scarlet-robed one saw his moment and took over the reigns and much factional intrigue and murderous japes ensued.

Louis had a brother called Gaston of Orleans who, unsurprisingly, was 'vain and hare-brained'. He kept conspiring with various other characters to kill the Sombre Cardinal but kept on failing (what's the definition of madness again? It must have been that pesky old hare-brain of his.) Louis, meanwhile remained feeble-minded and spineless, freeing up the Sombre Cardinal to get involved in all manner of boring old wars across Europe.

Things reached a head when Louis was apparently on the verge of signing something to dismiss the Sombre Cardinal. All the Sombre Cardinal had to do was show up and freak the 'puppet sovereign' out. Louis promptly proceeded to flee and the Sombre Cardinal continued his unpleasant ways for a good 10 years or so. He continued to have Louis's mates and allies bumped off, including his idolised favourite, the 'shallow' and 'vain' Monsieur Le Grand who hatched a rather far-fetched plot to have Spain intervene in France (no wonder it was a hare-brained scheme - Gaston was involved). Before Louis even had a chance to plead for his favourite's life (and let's face it, Louis's track record at saving people was not great), the Sombre Cardinal ensured that Monsieur Le Grand's head was cut off.

The story ends with a bit of a whimper. It ends with Louis weeping over the dying Sombre Cardinal saying 'You and I have lived too long together to be separated now'. Personally, I would have been dancing a jig on his sombre, bloated stomach. Louis himself shuffled off 5 months later. He was 41.

And I thought my life was pointless. Things could be so much worse. I could have been born the King of France.

PS Must fly. The toy-cannon hauling doggies are restless. And those vegetables won't peel themselves.

Harriet Smithson, the actress who captured the passionate composer's heart (or, more Corrupted Endeavour)

Speaking of corrupted endeavour, I was recently struck by the grubby tale of poor Harriet Smithson, the Irish Actress who married the French composer Hector Berlioz and inspired his "Symphonie Fantastique". My source for the following information is not a venerable tome. It is not even the Encyclopedia Britannica. Rather, it is a two-bit Australian Magazine called 'Parade' from October 1976. The author of the article is uncredited. 'Parade' was a rather odd magazine, seemingly designed for the type of character who likes to know a little bit about a lot of things. (In other words, a stupefying bore like myself). In the same edition of 'Parade' were articles about Mao Tse-tung, scandalous dukes, charming snakes, courageous opera singers and Oscar Wilde's 'ugly' lecherous father. Needless to say, I found it unputdownable. I have chosen it as my source of information about Harriet Smithson for its focus on the tawdry and sensational at the expense of the worthy. And in the hope that it will be utterly, utterly unreliable. I always believe in choosing the past that suits one best..

The article begins with a very dramatic tableaux: Parisian audiences "frozen into silence broken only by sighs and sobbing" in the presence of Harriet playing the loopy Ophelia scene from 'Hamlet'. It continues:"There was one young man in the audience whose emotional reaction to the intense acting went even deeper. Springing to his feet, a great cry of agony flooded from his throat and with tears coursing down his cheeks he fled. And so began the tragic love affair of the beautiful Harriet Smithson and the man who could not bear the realism of her superb acting, the composer Hector Berlioz." This rather high-spirited behavior on Hector's part may be partly explained by the fact that, at the time, he was "living in squalid circumstances in the Latin Quarter on a diet of dates and milk."

Hector then embarked on a campaign of stalking Harriet into marrying him, described by 'Parade' as "what seemed a forlorn campaign to win her." Harriet was, after all, a "slender, blue-eyed colleen with the thrilling passion in her voice..". To the French, she was 'La Belle Smidson'. She had many admirers including the 'fat, gouty King Charles X.' 

Hector's campaign got off to a faltering start. He staged a magnificent concert of his own compositions and was widely feted. But Harriet "was scarcely aware it had even been held". She ordered her maid to return his countless letters unopened. Eventually, however, as Hector's star began to rise, Harriet's began to wane. She tried and failed to establish a permanent English theatre in Paris with herself as star. She toured in expensive flops and spent too much money. "By 1832 her company, tired of being unpaid, returned to England leaving Harriet in a Paris that had lost interest in her."

It was then that she met the now-succesful Hector who still held one big candle for her. He "swallowed laudanum and took a life-saving draft only when she begged him not to die."

And then she married the kook.

Harriet then commenced what could be only be described as her downward spiral. Hector didn't really help matters much by staging a huge concert for her benefit, but managing to have his heavyweight pals (a bunch of nobodies by the name of Chopin, Liszt and Alexandre Dumas) totally upstage poor Harriet: "Harriet's Ophelia roused only a few polite handclaps, and in a fury, she stormed out of the hall swearing never to appear on the stage."

Harriet then became insanely jealous of her husband (he apparently had to leave for tours in the middle of the  night  to escape her outbursts) and lived a hand to mouth existence in Montmarte. She accused him of schtupping every woman he came across. She may have some grounds for this because: "Finally in 1842 he set out for a concert tour of Belgium taking with him as mistress Marie Recio, a singer of limited attainments."

Hector then all but abandoned Harriet and their kid. She, in turn, "had taken to drink, became disgustingly obese and developed an ugly skin disease." Harriet died, Hector re-married and then his second wife also pre-deceased him. Hector then had the brilliant idea that both wives should be buried together in the same vault.(I can imagine said wives would have had a thing or two to say about that particular egotistical little plan. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the afterlife.) As the gravediggers lifted Harriet's coffin, "the woodwork fell to pieces and the once-lovely actress's skull fell into the mud at the famed composer's feet. Overcome by shock and revulsion Berlioz fled from the cemetary and was seen by nobody for days afterwards. The drama had ended."

Bloody romantics.

The Statue of Corrupted Endeavour

I just have to get this out of my system early on. I love Edward Gorey, even though he seems to be on every coffee mug or fridge magnet these days (and despite the fact that he once illustrated T.S Eliot's curs-ed book about those bloody cats). And 'The Object Lesson' is my all time favourite Gorey book. Here's a picture of The Statue of Corrupted Endeavour.

Edward Gorey identified 'The Object Lesson' as one of his favourite books and maintained that he set out to write a book which didn't make any sense. For some reason, I find his brand of nonsense particularly moving.