#weston richmond

[shade-astray]

Rain City Drive // Concrete Closure

[indynerdgirl]

Happy 248th Birthday to the US Navy!

The bravery of four Catholic chaplains in the line of duty has been recognized by US Navy vessels named in their honor:

Father Aloysius H. Schmitt and the USS Schmitt

Aloysius H. Schmitt was born in St. Lucas,Iowa on December 4, 1909, and was appointed acting chaplain with the rank of Lieutenant (Junior Grade) on June 28, 1939. Serving on his first sea tour, he was hearing confessions on board the battleship USS Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. When the ship capsized, he was entrapped along with several other members of the crew in a compartment where only a small porthole provided a means of escape. He assisted others through the porthole, giving up his own chance to escape, so that more men might be rescued. He received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal posthumously for his courage and self-sacrifice. St. Francis Xavier Chapel, erected at Camp Lejeune in 1942, was dedicated in his memory.

The destroyer escort USS SCHMITT was laid down on February 22, 1943, launched on May 29, 1943, and was commissioned on July 24, 1943. The USS Schmitt was decommissioned and placed in reserve on June 28,1949 and struck from the Navy list on May 1,1967.

Father Joseph T. O'Callahan and the USS O'Callahan

Joseph T. O'Callahan was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 14, 1905. He received his training for the Roman Catholic priesthood at St. Andrews College, Poughkeepsie, New York and at Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to his commissioning as a Navy chaplain on August 7, 1940, he was head of the mathematics department at Holy Cross College. His earlier duty stations included the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, the USS Ranger, and Naval Air Station, Hawaii.

Chaplain O'Callahan was the Senior Chaplain aboard the aircraft carrier USS Franklin when the Japanese attacked it off the coast of Kobe, Japan, on March 19, 1945. After the ship received at least two well-placed bomb hits, fuel and ammunition began exploding and fires were rampant. The final casualty count listed 341 dead, 431 missing and 300 wounded. Captain L.E. Gehres, commanding officer of the carrier, saw Chaplain O'Callahan manning a hose which laid water on bombs so they would not explode, throwing hot ammunition overboard, giving last rites of his church to the dying, organizing fire fighters, and performing other acts of courage. Captain Gehres exclaimed, "O'Callahan is the bravest man I've ever seen in my life."

Chaplain O'Callahan received the Purple Heart for wounds he sustained that day. He and three other heroes of the war were presented the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Harry S. Truman. He was the first chaplain of any of the armed services to be so honored. He was released from active duty 12 November 1946 to resume his teaching duties and died in 1964.

The destroyer escort USS O'Callahan was laid down on February 19, 1964 and launched on October 20, 1965. Chaplain O'Callahan's sister, Sister Rose Marie O'Callahan, was the sponsor, the first nun tosponsora U.S. Navy ship. The commissioning took place July 13, 1968, at the Naval Shipyard in Boston, Massachusetts. The USS O'Callahan had its shakedown cruise out of San Diego and later operated largely in anti-submarine training and reconnaissance in the Western Pacific. In 1982-83, the ship had an eight-month deployment in the Indian Ocean. The USS O'Callahan was decommissioned on December 20,1988. 

Father Vincent R. Capodanno and the USS Capodanno

Vincent R. Capodanno was born in Richmond County, New York, on February 13, 1929. He was an avid swimmer and a great sports enthusiast. After receiving his training at Fordham University in New York City, Maryknoll Seminary College in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and Maryknoll Seminaries in Bedford, Massachusetts and New York City, New York, he was ordained on June 7, 1957 by Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York and Military Vicar of the Roman Catholic Military Ordinariate. Shortly thereafter, he began an eight-year period of service in Taiwan and Hong Kong under the auspices of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society.

Chaplain Capodanno received his commission with the rank of Lieutenant on December 28, 1965. Having requested duty with Marines in Vietnam, he joined the First Marine Division in 1966 as a battalion chaplain. He extended his one-year tour by six months in order to continue his work with the men. While seeking to aid a wounded corpsman, he was fatally wounded on September 4, 1967 by enemy sniper fire in the Quang Tin Province. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty...." He had previously been awarded the Bronze Star Medal for bravery under battle conditions.

The destroyer escort USS Capodanno keel was laid down on February 25, 1972; the ship was christened and launched on October 21, 1972 and commissioned on November 17, 1973. The USS Capodanno was designed for optimum performance in anti-submarine warfare. Deployments included operations in the Western Atlantic, West Africa, the Mediterranean, and South America. The USS Capodanno was decommissioned on July 30, 1993.

Father John Francis Laboon, SJ and the USS Laboon

John Francis Laboon, Jr., a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, native, born April 11, 1921, was a member of the Class of 1944 at the U.S. Naval Academy and a distinguished athlete. In World War II, Ensign Laboon was awarded the Silver Star for bravery for diving from his submarine, the USS PETO, to rescue a downed aviator while under heavy fire. Lieutenant Laboon left the Navy after the war to enter the Jesuits. With the Navy never far from his thoughts, he returned to his beloved "blue and gold" as a chaplain in 1958. For the next twenty-one years, he served the Navy-Marine Corps team in virtually every community and location including tours in Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, and Vietnam, where he received the Legion of Merit with Combat "V" for his fearless action as battlefield chaplain. He was the first chaplain assigned to a Polaris Submarine Squadron and Senior Catholic Chaplain at the Naval Academy. Captain Laboon retired in in 1979 as Fleet Chaplain, U.S. Atlantic Fleet and died in 1988.

The launching of the guided missile destroyer Laboon nicknamed the "Fearless 58" took place on February 20, 1993, at Bath Iron Works. The highlight of the event was the presence of the honoree's three sisters and brother. Christening the ship were sisters De Lellis, Rosemary, and Joan, all members of the Sisters of Mercy. Rev. Joseph D. Laboon of the V.A. Medical Center of New Orleans offered the invocation. Former Chief of Navy Chaplains and the then-current Archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O'Connor, offered remarks. The commissioning of the USS Laboon took place on March 18,1995 in Norfolk, VA. Throughout a lifetime of service to God and Country, Chaplain Laboon was an extraordinary example of dedication to Sailors and Marines everywhere.

[all information from the USCCB website]

[wausaupilot]

D.C. Everest softball blanks Marshfield to win WIAA Division 1 regional final

Wausau Pilot & Review WESTON – D.C. Everest pitcher Addison Kluck was masterful again, allowing just two hits in a 10-0 victory over Marshfield in a WIAA Division 1 softball regional final Thursday at D.C. Everest High School. Kluck struck out 11 and did not walk a batter to lead the No. 3 seeded Evergreens (20-6) into a D-1 sectional semifinal match at No. 2 seed New Richmond (19-3) on…

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"LAKE SHORE TOWNS LEAD VICTORY LOAN," Toronto Star. October 26, 1942. Page 8. ---- Etobicoke, Mimico, New Toronto, Long Branch Reach. 57 p.c. of Objective. --- Etobicoke township and the Lakeshore municipalities of Mimico, New Toronto and Long Branch led all of Ontario today when returns from the first week's sale of victory bonds were tabulated. General canvass and employee payroll deduction subscriptions in the Etobicoke-Lakeshore unit exceeded $1,000,000 or 57 per cent. of an objective of $1,775,-000, officials said. Subscriptions by sub-divisions, with objective shown in brackets, up to Saturday night were: New Toronto, $384.150 ($633,000); Long Branch, $212,450 ($332,000); Kingsway-Lambton Mills, $194,700 ($265,- 000); Mimico. $96.350 ($240.000); Islington, $60.750 ($125,000); North Etobicoke, $34.000 ($75,000); South Etobicoke, $27.850 ($105,000). In the York township-Swansea unit subscriptions today had almost reached one-third of the general canvass objective of $2,225,000, officials reported. The combined total, including bonds bought by large industries, was 56 per cent. of the total objective of $3,475,000 for the area, they said. Bonds to the value of $522.000 were sold up to Saturday in the North York township - Weston Swansea campaign unit. This is more than 27 per cent. of the general canvass objective of $1,925,000, officials said. In the York county north area, including the municipalities of Newmarket, Aurora, Richmond Hill, Sutton, Woodbridge, Stouffville, Markham, and the rural townships, subscriptions np to Saturday were) $329,150 against an objective of $1,600,000, H. L. Trapp, unit organizer at Newmarket, reported.

[bethanydelleman]

Mrs. Churchill: The Most Unfairly Maligned Woman in Jane Austen

We never meet Mrs. Churchill in Jane Austen’s Emma, everything we know about her is second- (Frank) or third- (Mr. Weston) hand. But once you read the book a second or tenth time, it becomes clear that Mrs. Churchill was getting progressively worse, ending in her death and Frank knew this. 

Mrs. Churchill is far more sick than Frank ever admits. He often uses her as an excuse to neglect visiting his father.  Everyone in Highbury thinks Mrs. Churchill is faking because it's so convenient that she's sick when Frank is supposed to visit. But we know the truth, he doesn't visit until Jane comes to Highbury, he is staying away on purpose.

But she does decline during the course of the novel

Evidence of her decline: 

We know that the Churchills go to London yearly with Frank, “He saw his son every year in London” and yet, Frank says to Emma, “and if my uncle and aunt go to town this spring—but I am afraid—they did not stir last spring—I am afraid it is a custom gone for ever.” This custom has happened every year of Frank’s life and now is suddenly ended. Sounds like Mrs. Churchill was too sick to go the year prior and Frank does not expect her to get better.

According to Mr. Weston, Frank can come if the Churchills do not visit a family called the Braithwaites, “But I know they will, because it is a family that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point.” But the Churchills do actually go for the visit. As if they are saying goodbye and seeing people for the last time.

Mrs. Churchill does allow Frank to stay in Highbury for the ball, and then suddenly withdraws consent, “A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew’s instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwell—far too unwell to do without him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband) when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle, and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay.” This seems like a petty power play until we remember that she does actually die at the end of the book. Several close calls are normal for a person experiencing hospice care or a sudden decline in health.

Then Mrs. Churchill suddenly decides to go to London, which makes sense if she’s been getting much worse and wants to consult the London physicians:

“The evil of the distance from Enscombe,” said Mr. Weston, “is, that Mrs. Churchill, as we understand (in italics in the text), has not been able to leave the sofa for a week together. In Frank’s last letter she complained, he said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having both his arm and his uncle’s! This, you know, speaks a great degree of weakness—but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to sleep only two nights on the road.—So Frank writes word. Certainly, delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You must grant me that.”

Frank actually stays away from Jane against his inclination when Mrs. Churchill is in Richmond. Mrs. Churchill is actually getting worse and he's not a complete dick, he stays with her:

This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days. He was often hoping, intending to come—but was always prevented. His aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at Randall’s. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill’s removal to London had been of no service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all his father’s doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary, or that she was as strong as ever.

and later: The black mare was blameless; they were right who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had lasted some hours—and he had quite given up every thought of coming,

Also, let us consider how much hatred is directed at Mrs. Churchill for wanting her adopted nephew to stay by her while she is dying, whilst Mr. Woodhouse, who basically imprisons his daughter with all his fancies of ill health, is widely loved. Mrs. Churchill is the alleged hypochondriac who is actually sick, while Mr. Woodhouse worries about his health, but has no recorded illness through the entire book.

To sum up, Mrs. Churchill was getting progressively worse over the course of the novel. She very reasonably wanted her adopted child to be near her. Frank does actually do his duty to his aunt, indicating that he is well aware of how sick she has become. Mrs. Churchill’s death was not sudden, it happens at the end of a decline lasting about a year, or a bit longer.

[synchronousemma]

Sunday, 26th June: Mrs. Churchill is no more

Read the post and comment on WordPress

Read: Vol. 3, ch. 9 [45]; pp. 254–255 (“The following day” to “with mutual forbearance”).

Context

An express arrives at Randalls telling of Mrs. Churchill’s death.

In July, Frank writes a letter referencing this as “‘the event of the 26th ult. [of last month]’” (vol. 3, ch. 14 [50]; p. 289); an express sent from Richmond to Highbury would arrive the same day it was sent.

An “express” is a letter that is carried directly from sender to receiver, rather than being carried from post office to post office; it is thus quicker to arrive and more expensive to send. Mr. Weston’s resolution “that his mourning should be as handsome as possible” and Mrs. Weston’s contemplation of “hems” are in reference to a tradition of wearing mourning clothes for some time after the death of a family member. The reference to Goldsmith (“when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die”) is drawn from The Vicar of Wakefield.

The Norton edition has “not spoken of with compassionate allowances” (p. 254); the 1816 publication has (what seems to be more compliant with the context) “now spoken of” (p. 156).

Note that the section “Murder, She Wrote” contains spoilers.

Readings and Interpretations

Murder, She Wrote

Leland Monk gives a summary of the events of the past few days as they impacted Jane and Frank, which is worth quoting at length:

Frank Churchill’s engagement to Jane Fairfax had to be kept secret while his aunt was alive because Mrs. Churchill would certainly not approve of such a connection and would no doubt deprive Frank of the considerable fortune he stood to inherit if he married against her wishes. Mrs. Churchill had been in ill health for awhile and apparently Frank and Jane were holding out until her death, at which time they could appeal to her more tractable husband.

[...] All the tension and aggravation of their secret understanding came to a head in a quarrel that made both of them seriously consider ending the engagement. The private quarrel between the two lovers was played out in the public arena the next day during the disastrous picnic to Box Hill. Jane was cold and severe, while Frank flirted outrageously with Emma in front of his fiancée. Jane conveyed to him “in a form of words perfectly intelligible” that she was quite willing to end their acquaintance: “I would be understood to mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness must always be at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever.” Frank responded by proposing to Emma (but for Jane’s ears) that he would go abroad for a couple of years—the usual way gentlemen who can afford to do so extricate themselves from unpleasant intimacies. Frank left Highbury that afternoon, returning to Richmond without patching things up, and Jane wrote to him next day breaking off the engagement. Their relationship under the conditions of secrecy had reached a dead end. If those conditions did not somehow change, they were almost certainly going to part forever. (pp. 343–4)

Monk goes on to argue that Emma is a mystery in a different way than other critics suggest—rather than asking us to solve riddles such as “whom does this charade designate” and “who is Harriet in love with,” it is a murder mystery. He writes:

Mrs. Churchill died two days later, not only at a suspiciously convenient time but of a suspiciously unknown cause. Here is Jane Austen’s announcement of her death; and notice the unusual attention given to time and circumstance: “Though her nephew had had no particular reason to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from anything foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more” [vol. 3, ch. 9 [45]; p. 254]. In the same sentence we are told of Frank’s return and his aunt’s death; the syntax would seem to suggest a cause and effect relationship—Frank’s return precipitated his aunt’s unexplained death.

[...] The evidence suggesting that Mrs. Churchill was murdered by her nephew is not conclusive, but given the timing of her death and the motive, opportunity, and psychology of Frank Churchill, it is remarkable that even his most severe critics consider his aunt's passing simply “fortuitous,” a bit of “luck,” “a happy and timely accident.” (pp. 344, 349)

This oversight may be caused in part by our understanding that a novelist may “kill” characters off for plot reasons (“the possibility of actual murder in Emma is subsumed by novelistic conventions which have inured us to death as a way of resolving plot complications”), as well as by our assumption that murder is not something that can happen in an Austen novel (however much we are used to the “constant and corrective ‘mortification’ of an Austen character,” a more everyday type of violence that is “especially directed against women,” p. 350). For Monk, though, the most interesting aspect of this reading is how

the suggestion of murder in Emma indicates how completely Jane Austen practices what she preaches against, making her in many ways Frank Churchill’s accomplice in crime. That which the novel’s moral code condemns in Frank is clearly evident in his creator’s own novelistic practices: all of the puzzles in the novel, and especially those posed by the writer to the reader, show how Austen, like her character, enjoys playing games that mystify and deceive. (ibid.)

The Hypochondriacs Are All Right

Anita Soloway writes that Mrs. Churchill’s death is one example of how the “war, illness, accident, painful reversals of fortune—so prominent in Persuasion—already hover on [Emma’s] periphery” (n.p.). Mr. Woodhouse, who “warns us of the precariousness of life,” therefore seems worth paying some attention to:

Whatever the source of his anxieties may be, Mr. Woodhouse functions at once as a classic comic killjoy—“’The sooner every party breaks up, the better’” [vol. 2, ch. 7 [25]; p. 136]—and as a foreboding voice, persistently warning both the other characters and the readers of how fragile our lives really are. His warnings are vindicated not only by Jane Fairfax’s nearly fatal accident but also by the unexpected death of Mrs. Churchill from “[a] sudden seizure of a different nature from any thing foreboded by her general state” [p. 254]. (ibid.)

These peripheral “examples of the vulnerability of our lives,” however, are softened precisely by the fact that they are peripheral:

Arguably the most pitiable figure of Emma, John Abdy never actually appears in it but is only mentioned once in passing by Miss Bates. While talked of much more frequently, Mrs. Churchill, the only character who dies in the course of Emma, also never actually appears. […] Jane’s [accident] predates the action of the novel, and the information about it is buried in Miss Bates’s chatter. The deaths of Lieutenant Fairfax and of the mothers of Emma, Jane, and Frank occurred, of course, many years before the novel begins. By creating temporal and emotional distances between the reader and these characters and events, by relegating them to the outskirts of the novel, Austen carefully subordinates the vision of the fragility of our lives to the novel's primary focus on Emma’s moral development. (ibid.)

DA Miller similarly notes Austen’s “proscription […] that no major character may die, and no character whatsoever may die ‘on stage,’” arguing that it “frustrate[s] any possible development of the large-looming, but abidingly static, theme of hypochondria” (p. 79). “[T]he decease of the hypochondriac Mrs. Churchill” does, however, make the dual-edged point that hypochondria is pointless foolishness that nonetheless has some basis in reality (FN 37, p. 106):

For only [hypochondria’s] antiphrasis of death could unfold the folly of hypochondria: the ultimate irrelevance of our minor or mendacious maladies to the great killer that, despite the fuss we make over them, they don't even have the merit of preparing us for [“of a different nature than any thing foreboded…”]. And only the antiphrasis of death could let us grasp the grain of truth that, in among its salts and vials, hypochondria nonetheless contains: that we are indeed always suffering from something that will be ‘the death of us’—life. But like disaster, death […] is “news… to throw every thing else into the back-ground.” (pp. 79–80)

Can Mrs. Churchill be assumed to be a hypochondriac, though, as these critics take for granted? Mr. Weston has seemed to think so—but as her illness, real or imaginary, is standing in the way of his seeing Frank, his personal stake in the matter needs to be considered. And, as we have already seen, Frank once “could not be prevailed on by all his father’s doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary” (because he was more familiar with the nature of her complaints than Mr. Weston was? or because he was trying to present himself as the image of respectful gratitude?) (vol. 3, ch. 1 [19]; p. 206). The evidence that Mr. Weston tries to summon, that Mrs. Churchill was one day “too weak to get into her conservatory” under her own power and another day “so impatient to be in town, that she means to sleep only two nights on the road” means just about nothing, given that it is in the nature of much chronic illness to be changeable [vol. 2, ch. 18 [36]; p. 200]. John Wiltshire writes:

The mystery, or undecidability, of Mrs Churchill’s illness is not resolved, either, by her death. ‘Mrs Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The event acquitted her of all the fancifulness and all the selfishness of imaginary complaints’ [p. 254]. She is now admitted into Highbury discourse on its own terms as ‘Poor Mrs Churchill!' But Highbury is obtuse and the ambiguity persists, since she is carried off, as the narrator makes occasion to say, ‘by a sudden seizure of a different nature from any thing foreboded by her general state’. How one reads Mrs Churchill’s illness depends then upon one’s own interests, position and point of view—perhaps one’s own state of health. (p. 122)

At any rate it seems foolish to assume that one knows the truth either way, regarding a novel that not only makes a motif out of robust versus ill health (see Wiltshire) but also repeatedly dramatizes the dangers of assuming that one knows how to decode the world around oneself.

She Stoops to Folly

The narrator paraphrases Oliver Goldsmith in an aside upon Mrs. Churchill’s death: “Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops  to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill fame” (p. 254). Marvin Mudrick attributes offhand remarks about death of this sort to “cruelty” and “malice” on Austen’s part (qtd. in  Johnson, p. 159); Frances Restuccia, though she does not condemn Austen for the joke, attributes the sentence to “a surprising snide reference against [Mrs. Churchill]” from the narrator (p. 453).

For Claudia Johnson, however, the aside is not an insult but “a stunning, deadly serious piece of social criticism” (p. 160). She elaborates on the literary and social context of Goldsmith’s remark:

“Stooping to folly” is, of course, a euphemism for being seduced and abandoned. In English novels of sensibility, the deaths of lovely women—through an act of suicide or, which amounts to a similar thing, through a mortal or near-mortal superabundance of remorseful feeling—almost always follow this form of disgrace, although death also awaits women of feeling who have been wronged by an unfeeling world in less compromising ways. (ibid.)

Thus “Austen’s novels defy and discredit this call [for the death of women who do not satisfy a set of narrow conventions], not because death is impolite, as Janeites might have it, but because to satisfy readers’ cravings for deathbed scenes would mean consenting to social assumptions that make such scenes appear desirable and natural in the first place” (ibid.).

Discussion Questions

Is it feasible that Frank Churchill could have murdered his aunt? What evidence should such a case be tried on (textual evidence, evidence of motive, evidence of genre)?

Does Mrs. Churchill’s death prove, as Highbury at large professes, that she has not been a hypochondriac all along? What is Emma’s stance on hypochondria?

What is the purpose of the Goldsmith reference in this section?

Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Emma (Norton Critical Edition). 3rd ed. Ed. Stephen M. Parrish. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, [1815] 2000.

Johnson, Claudia L. “A ‘Sweet Face as White as Death’: Jane Austen and the Politics of Female Sensibility.” Novel 22.2 (Winter 1989), pp. 159–74. DOI: 10.2307/1345801.

Miller, D. A. Jane Austen, or the Secret of Style. Princeton: Princeton University Press (2003).

Monk, Leland. “Murder She Wrote: The Mystery of Jane Austen’s Emma.” The Journal of Narrative Technique 20.3 (Fall 1990), pp. 342–53. DOI: 10.2307/30225305.

Restuccia, Frances L. “A Black Morning: Kristevan Melancholia in Jane Austen’s Emma.” American Imago 51.4 (Winter 1994), pp. 447–69.

Soloway, Anita. “The Darkness of Emma.” Persuasions 38 (2016), pp. 81–94.

Wiltshire, John. “Emma: The Picture of Health.” In Jane Austen and the Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1992), pp. 110–54. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511586248.005.

[thebeautifulbook]

FOLK TALES AND FAIRY TALES FROM INDIA. Cover design by Patricia Richmond (2017).

———

Heroic Works, Designers Bookbinders International Competition 2017 was a travelling exhibition that ran from July 18 through August 20, 2017, in Weston Library at the University of Oxford. #bookbinders competition

source

[lonestarbattleship]

The first Commanding Officer of USS TEXAS (BB-35) was Captain Albert Weston Grant. In 1913, he took command of TEXAS during her builder's trials. He was her Captain from March 12, 1914 till June 10, 1915 and retired on April 6, 1920, Vice Admiral Grant. He passed away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 30, 1930.

He was born on April 14, 1856 at East Benton, Maine and grew up at Stevens Point, Wisconsin. "He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1873. Until 1913 the law required that Naval Academy graduates serve two years at sea before being commissioned ensign.

Upon graduation in 1877, Graduated Midshipman Grant served his two years in the old Civil War veteran ship USS PENSACOLA (1859) before transferring to USS LACKAWANNA (1862) and receiving his commission in 1879.

He had a long, distinguished career in the Navy, serving in a great many ships before being assigned to TEXAS. His early years as a young naval officer saw the transformation of the United States Navy from the age of wooden-hulled vessels, some still driven by sail, to modern all-steel, steam-powered ships. In fact, Grant later participated personally in the Navy’s modernization efforts by helping to bring electrical power to his venerable old ship Pensacola.

As important as the technological changes that were taking place in the Navy during Grant’s time, and the expansion of the numbers and types of ships in the Navy, was the need to transform the 'mind set' of officers and sailors alike. Naval vessels had always operated as independent entities responsible for carrying out the Navy’s mission at home and abroad. It was now becoming necessary to operate in units, with coordinated movements, to face the potentia threat of other nation’s navies in more complex combat actions than the simple line of ships. The creation of the Naval War College was part of the process of training naval officers in the new strategy and tactics of a modern navy.

Grant was one of the early student naval officers, and when completed the course at the War College he was sent back to sea in USS TRENTON (1876) (operating as part of the Asiatic Fleet), USS RICHMOND (1860) (Asiatic Fleet), USS SARATOGA (1842) (operating as a school ship) and then USS YORKTOWN (PG-1) (operating on the Atlantic Station). The latter two ship names will one day be much more familiar when assigned to aircraft carriers. Following his time in those four vessels, Lt (now full lieutenant) Grant returned to the Navy Yard at Norfolk. It was during this stint that he was part of the team bringing electricity onto Pensacola.

After a three-year posting as an instructor at the Naval Academy, an assignment reserved for the most impressive of young officers, Lt. Grant returned to sea duty, and soon found himself serving on USS MASSACHUSETTS (BB-2), during the Spanish-American War. Aboard Massachusetts, Grant experienced his first naval combat. As part of the initial blockade of Cuba, MASSACHUSETTS shelled Spanish forts and fought with Spanish ships. While missing the actual Battle of Santiago, she fought alongside USS TEXAS (1892) against Reina Mercedes, forcing that Spanish cruiser to ground herself.

That same year, 1898, he was transferred to the gunboat USS MACHIAS (PG-5). MACHIAS also fought in in the Spanish-American War, and at the end of 1899 steamed to Washington to participate in ceremonies honoring American naval hero Admiral George Dewey. While in MACHIAS, Grant was promoted to lieutenant commander, and then sent back to the Naval Academy to resume his role as instructor of future naval officers. Returning to sea in 1902, Lieutenant Commander Grant served in the battleship USS OREGON (BB-3), as Executive Officer (XO) and then was made Captain (CO) of USS FROLIC (1892) in 1903, operating in the Philippines.

In 1904, he returned to the Naval Academy again as an instructor, was promoted to Commander and soon put in charge of the Department of Seamanship. While in that capacity, he wrote the textbook for naval tactics, 'School of the Ship: Prepared for the use of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy', published in 1907 (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1907). His would be the textbook used by many other future captains of battleship TEXAS during their times at the Academy. Soon, the instructor became a student as he left the Academy and took the advanced course at the Naval War College.

Finishing there, Grant was given command of the supply ship USS ARETHUSA (AO-7), one of the support vessels for the upcoming Great White Fleet, sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt to show off the United States Navy.

When that fleet set out on its two-year cruise, Commander Grant was made the fleet Chief of Staff, onboard USS CONNECTICUT (BB-18). During the cruise he was promoted to captain, and then named commander of CONNECTICUT. When the cruise ended in 1910, he returned to shore duty and was made commander of the 4th Naval District and then commander of the Philadelphia Naval Yard. In 1912 he was given command of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, and in 1913 was named supervisor of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Naval Districts before being relieved of those jobs and transferred to the Newport News Shipbuilding Company.

At Newport News, Captain Grant was responsible for overseeing the construction of the Navy’s newest ship, the super-dreadnought TEXAS. TEXAS and her sister ship USS NEW YORK (BB-34) were the new breed of extraordinarily powerful battleships. Supervising her construction was a great honor and responsibility for Grant, taking official command on her launching in 1912 and upon her commissioning in March 1914, he was her first CO. As a TEXAS's 'plank owner' (part of the original crew of a new ship), Captain Grant had to deal with all the inherent problems of sea trials for the ship and training for the crew. One of her massive engines even threw a rod during her speed trials, much to the embarrassment of the contractors, but eventually she was declared sound and complete and handed over to the Navy. In her time, TEXAS represented the height of naval technology and complex machinery and training a new crew was a huge undertaking. For Grant and his crew her shake-down did not last quite as long as they might have hoped. Almost literally before her paint was dry, TEXAS was ordered to Mexico as part of President Woodrow Wilson’s show of force and seizure of Veracruz, April 1914, just a month after commissioning, making her shake-down cruise the journey south for her first assignment.

During TEXAS’ time in Mexican waters, she made a short November return to the United States and her name state where Captain Grant presided over the acceptance by the ship of a beautiful silver service donated by the people of Texas—still on display in the ship’s Officer’s Wardroom—and adoption of the ship’s first mascot, a bear cub named Ursa, December, she returned to the United States and a regular routine of training exercises, repairs and cruising up and down the east coast and into the Caribbean having developed into the efficient and powerful naval vessel she would be for her entire time in the Navy.

In 1915, Grant was promoted to rear admiral, left TEXAS and was made commander of the Submarine Force of the Atlantic Fleet while the United States maintained uneasy neutrality as much of the rest of the world was engulfed in World War I. Once the United States entered the war, Grant’s vast experience made him a great asset to the Navy, and in 1917 he was given the wartime rank of vice admiral and command of Battleship Force One, Atlantic Fleet, earning the Distinguished Service Medal in the process.

After the war, Admiral Grant was made commandant of the Washington Naval Yard and superintendent of the Navy Gun Factory before his retirement in 1920. His last years were spent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his wife Florence. Grant died in 1930, and was buried in Norfolk, Virginia."

-information from Chuck Moore, owner of battleshiptexas.info: link

A Fletcher Class Destroyer was named after him, USS ALBERT W. GRANT (DD-649). She was laid down on December 30, 1942 and was christened by his granddaughter Miss Nell Preston Grant on May 29, 1943. She commissioned on November 24, 1943 and decommissioned on July 16, 1946.

source, source, source, source, source

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command: NH 63406, NH 43579, NH 108650, NH 49907, NH 53960, NH 61686, NH 73318

NARA: 19-N-55226

[hacash]

Augh not to be obnoxious no pressure to answer this but. Dani + distance for the headcanons? (Having many emotions about him being so far from home) love your writing mwah thank youuu

Dani loves his family. He gets on well with his parents, and with his twelve siblings back in Mexico, and with his abuela, who he taught to Skype before coming over to the UK, and with his various cousins and aunties and uncles and friends...

Dani is also a ray of sunshine who tries his best to be cheerful and lift up the spirits of his teammates at every opportunity. The two things combined means that he misses his family like hell, but absolutely doesn't feel he can share that with anyone in the Richmond team.

This lasts for a couple of weeks, with Dani going for his phone at every opportunity after training to check the family WhatsApp, and going home early to skype his parents, and worrying himself into knots whenever a call has to be cancelled, until Sam Obisanya pulls him to one side. 'You know it's not healthy to pretend like you don't miss them,' Sam says, and tactfully glances away while Dani steels his jaw and tries not to well up. 'I get what it's like, being away for the first time; if you ever wanted to talk about it....'

This is around the time when Ted has started to make changes in the team, so after training that day Sam and Dani research the best Mexican restaurants in the area and then drag Colin, Isaac, and Richard out for a meal. (Roy refuses to come - despite Dani's puppy-dog eyes - but does recommend a few places where the tequila has, in his words, 'a kick like a Weston-Super-Mare donkey'.) Over the meal Dani talks about his parents and how they got together after a three-year flirtation over coffee at church - and Colin describes driving home to Wales to visit his nan on his weekends off - and Sam laughs over how his mum still doesn't know how to set up Skype without his dad's help - and Richard complains about navigating the Eurostar tunnel to visit his cousins - and Isaac says that if any of them fancy a Sunday roast his mother has a pathological need to feed everyone within a mile of her house if they want to visit....

All this is to say: that Dani still misses his family. But it's a bit easier to do so when you're all missing people together.

[trans-and-baby-names]

Masculine Names

Aaron  Abdul Abe  Abel Abraham  Abram Ace Achilles  Adair Adam Adonis Adrian Adriel  Ahmed Ajax Ajay Aiden Alan Albert Alejandro Alex Alexander Alfonso Alfred Alistair Alister Allen  Alonzo Amadeo Amadeus Amani Amari Ambrose Amir Anders  Anderson Andre Andreas Andrew Andy Angel Angelo Angus Ansel  Anson Anthony Antonio Apollo Aries Archer Archie Aristotle Arlo  Arnaldo Arnold Arsenio Arthur Arturo Arwin Asa Asher Aslan Atlas  Atticus Aubrey August Augustin Augustine Augustus Aurelio Aurelius Austin Axel  Aziz

Balthazar  Bane Barnabas  Barnaby Barney Baron  Barrett Basil Bastian  Bear Beau Beck Ben Benjamin  Benji Bentley Bernard Bertram Bertrand  Blake Blaze Blue Bobby Bodhi Booker Boris  Boston Bowie Boyd Brad Bradford Bradley Bram  Bramwell Bran Brandon Brandt Braxton Braylen Brayden Brendon  Brent Brett Brian Briar Brick Bridge Bridger Brock Brody Brogan  Bronx Brook Brooks Bruce Bruno Brutus Bryce Bryson Buck Bud Buddha  Buddy Buck Burt Burton Buster Buzz Byron 

Cade  Caden Cain  Cairo Caius Calder  Caleb Callum Calvin Cam  Cameron Camillo Campbell Carl  Carlisle Carlito Carlo Carlos Carlton  Carmine Carson Carter Casper Caspian Cassian  Cassias Cato Cecil Cedar Cedric Cesar Chad Chadwick  Chance Charles Charlton Chase Chauncey Chester Chidi Chip  Christoff Christoph Christopher Christian Chuck Cian Cillian  Clarence Clark Claud Clay Clayton Cliff Clifford Clint Clinton  Clyde Coby Cody Colby Cole Collin Colt Colton Conan Connor Conrad  Constantine Cooper Copper Corbin Cornelius Cory Cosmo Cosmos Costas Craig Crispin Cruz Curt Curtis Cyrus

Dale  Dallas  Dalton Damien  Damon Dan Dane Daniel  Dante Darius Darrel Darren  Dash Dashiell Davey David Dawson  Dax Daxton Deacon Dean DeAndre Declan  Demetrius Denali Dennis Denny Denzel Derek  Derrick Des Desmond Dewey Dex Dexter Diego Diesel  Dion Dirk Dixon Dmitri Dominic Donatello Donovan Dorian  Doug Douglas Draco Drew Duke Duncan Dustin Dusty Dwayne Dwight  Dylan Dyson 

Earl  Easton  Edgar Edmund  Eduardo Edward Edwin  Egon Eli Elijah Elias  Elliott Ellis Elroy Elton  Emanuel Emeric Emerson Emery  Emil Emiliano Emmett Emrys Enrique  Enzo Eric Ernest Ernesto Ernie Esteban  Ethan Eugene Eustace Euvan Evan Evander Everett  Ezekiel Ezra 

Fabian  Fabio Falcon  Faustus Felix Ferdinand  Fergus Ferguson Fernando Fidel  Fido Finbar Findlay Finn Finnley  Fionn Fisher Fitz Fletcher Flint Florence  Florian Ford Forrest Fort Foster Fowler Fox  Francesco Francis Francisco Franco Frank Frankie  Franklin Fred Freddy Fredrick Frederico

Gabe  Gabriel  Gael Gage  Gale Galen Garfield Garrett Gaston Gatsby  Gavin Geoffrey Geordie George  Gerald Gerard Gideon Gil Gilbert  Gilberto Giovanni Glenn Gordon Gordy  Grady Graham Grant Gray Grayson Gregg  Gregory Grey Griffin Griffith Grover Gunner  Gunther Gus Gustavo Guy 

Hades  Hal Hamilton  Hank Hans Harley Harrison  Harry Hawk Hayden Hayes Heath Hector  Henrik Hendrix Henry Herb Herbert Herbie  Hercules Hermes Hershel Hiram Holden Howard  Howie Hudson Hugo Humphrey Hunter Hux Huxley 

Ian Igor Iker Irvin Isaac Isaiah Ivan 

Jace  Jack Jackson  Jacob Jaques Jaden  Jake Jalen Jamal James  Jameson Jared Jason Jax  Jay Jed Jedidiah Jefferson  Jeffrey Jeremiah Jeremy Jerome  Jerry Jesus Jethro Jett Jim Jimmy  Joe Joel Johan Johannes John Johnny Jonah  Jonas Jonathan Jones Jordan Jose Joseph Joshua  Josiah Juan Juanito Judah Judas Judd Jude Jules Julian  Julien Julio Julius Junior Jupiter Jurgen Justice Justin Justus 

Kaden  Kai Kaiser  Kale Kaleb Kane  Keane Keanu Keaton  Keegan Keenan Keith  Kellen Kenan Kendrick  Kenneth Kenzo Keoni Kevin Khalid  Kian Kieran Kiernan Kingsley Kingston Killian  Kip Kwan Kyle

Lachlan  Lake Lamar  Lance Lancelot  Landon Lane Larkin  Larry Lars Laurence Laurent  Lawrence Lawson Lazlo Legend Leif  Leith Leland Leo Leon Leonardo Leopold  Leroy Levi Liam Lincoln Linden Logan Loki  London Lonnie Lonny Lorcan Lorenzo Lou Louie  Louis Luc Luca Lucas Lucian Lucky Luke Lupe Luther

Maddox  Maksim Malachi  Malachy Malakai Malcolm  Malik Manfred Manny Marcel Marcello  Marcellus Marcio Marcius Marco Marcos  Marcus Marian Marino Mario Marius Mark  Marlin Marlon Marmaduke Marques Mars Marshall  Martin Marty Marvel Marvin Massimo Mason Matt Matteo  Matthew Maurice Maverick Max Maximilian Maximus Maxwell  Melvin Mercury Meredith Merritt Micah Michael Miguel Miles  Milo Mitchell Moe Monte Montgomery Murdoch Murphy Murray Murtagh  Murtaugh Myles

Nathan  Nathaniel  Ned Nelson  Nemo Neo Neon  Neptune Neville  Newt Newton Nick  Nicky Nicola Nicolai  Nicholas Niko Noah Noel Nolan  Norm Norman Novak 

Obadiah  Octavio Octavius  Odin Olaf Oleg Oliver  Olivier Omar Orion Orlando  Orville Osborn Oscar Oso Osvaldo  Oswald Ottis Otto Owen Oz Ozzy

Pablo  Palmer Panther  Parker Pascal Patrick Paul  Paxton Pedro Penn Percival Percy Perseus  Peter Peyton Phil Philip Phineas Phoenix Pier  Pierce Pierre Pilot Pluto Porter Poseidon Preston  Prince Prosper

Qadir  Quincy Quinn  Quinton 

Raiden  Ralph Ramone  Ramses Randall Randolph  Randy Raphael Ravi Ray Raymond Red  Reece Reggie Reginald Regis Reid Remington  Reuben Rex Reynald Reynaldo Reynard Rhett Rhys  Ricardo Richard Richie Richmond Rick Ricky Rico Ridge  Riley Rio Riordan River Robert Roberto Robbie Rocco Rocky  Rodney Rodrigo Roger Ricky Riley Rod Rodrick Roger Roland  Roman Romeo Ross Rowan Rudy Rufus Russell Ryder Ryker Rylan Ryland 

Salem  Salvador  Salvator Sam  Samir Sampson Samson  Samuel Sander Sandford Sanjay  Santiago Saul Sawyer Scott Sean Sebastian  Septimus Serge Sergio Seth Seus Seymour Shane  Shawn Shayne Sheldon Shepherd Sherlock Sherman Shin Sidney  Sigmund Silas Silver Silvester Simon Sinclair Sinjin Sirius  Slade Slate Sol Solomon Sonny Sparrow Spartacus Spencer Spike  Soren Stan Stanford Stanley Steele Stephen Steven Stevie Stone Sven Summit  Sullivan Sully Sylvester

Tad  Tag Talon  Tanner Tate  Ted Teddy Teo Teodor  Teodoro Terence Terrell  Terry Tex Thad Thaddeus Thane  Thatcher Theo Theoden Theodore Thomas  Thor Thorn Tiberius Tiger Tito Titus Timothy  Titus Tobias Toby Tommy Tony Topher Trace Travis  Trent Trenton Trev Trevor Trey Tristan Troy Truman Tucker  Tudor Tullio Tullius Tully Tycho Tyler Tyrell Tyrese Tyrone  Tyson

Uberto  Ulric Ulrich  Ulysses Uriah Urban Urijah  Uriel

Van  Vance  Vaugn Victor  Vince Vincenco Vincent  Vinny Virgil Vlad Vladimir 

Wade  Walden  Waldo Walker  Wallace Wally Walt  Walter Warner Warren  Watson Waylon Wayne Wendall  Wesley Westley Weston Wilbert  Wilbur Wilder Wiley Wilfred Will William  Winston Wolf Wolfe Wolfgang Woodrow Wyatt 

Xander  Xavier Xavion  Xenon

Yael  Yahir York Yosef  Yousef Yusef

Zac  Zach Zachariah  Zacharias Zachary Zack  Zander Zane Zayden Zeke  Zeus Ziggy Zion Zoltan

[goalhofer]

2021-22 Youngstown Phantoms Roster

Wingers

#6 Stiven Sardarian (St. Petersburg, Russia)

#8 Evan Werner (Carrollton, Texas)

#9 Adam Ingham (West St. Paul, Manitoba)

#15 Tyler Catalano (St. Louis, Missouri)

#17 Quinn Kennedy (Montgomery County, Maryland)

#24 Shane LaChance (Andover, Massachusetts)

#27 Kyle Bettens (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

#40 Jaden Grant (White Lake Township, Michigan)

#77 Winter Wallace (Boulder, Colorado)

Centers

#16 Justin Varner (Shelby Township, Michigan)

#10 Grant Porter (Weston, Massachusetts)

#53 Ryan Alexander (Toronto, Ontario)

#86 Isogai Kenta (Nagano, Japan)

Defensemen

#3 Tomas Machů (Ostrava, Czech Republic)

#4 Michael Rubin (Orangetown, New York)

#5 Bayard Hall (Tewksbury Township, New Jersey)

#11 Carter Rose (Brasher, New York)

#19 Trey Taylor (Richmond, British Columbia)

#21 Nick Williams (Edina, Minnesota)

#22 Chase Pietila (Howell, Michigan)

#23 Andrew Centrella (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Goalies

#29 Kyle Chauvette (Goffstown, New Hampshire)

#43 Owen Bartoszkiewicz (Northville, Michigan)

[ohkraken-a]

FACTS

name : melika “melissa” maría haumea villanueva y ʻōpūnui nicknames : mel, meli, mels, lika, nāmaka date of birth : 14 december 1987 height : 5’8” pronouns : she / her gender : nonbinary sexuality : bisexual hometown : kaunakakai, moloka'i, hawai'i religion : raised catholic, currently non-practicing languages : english, hawaiian, somali, yemeni arabic degree : none, graduated high school and joined the mercy corps current residence : inwood, manhattan, new york city current job : foreign liaison / logistics specialist for shield relationship : single pets : ginger maine coon named sarge & aspin named moela transporation: red 1951 chevy truck

         born to kalani ʻōpūnui and bayani villanueva y tatlonghari, melika ( called melissa while attending school in the mainland, ) was a bright and happy child, outgoing and always eager to make new friends. her younger sister, kailani, was far more fiery than her, and presented a hot contrast to melika’s more ‘cool’ exterior. although born in kaunakakai, a job offer within her father’s company pulled them away from the islands she called home at the age of 15, whisking the entire family off to port richmond, new york.

    upon graduating from high school, melika decided that her future lied not with attending college, as her sister would eventually do, but instead with taking a position with the mercy corps and traveling across the world to dhusaamareeb, somalia. while there, doing work with the organization, she wound up staying with a local mutant family comprised of ra'ifah, her two sons ghedi and asad, and a young mutant they adopted named hu'ur. aware of her own low-level mutation allowing melika control over water, she bonded quickly and easily with the family, doing her part while overseas to contribute to and help them in any way she could.

         it was her hands-on work with not just the family she stayed with but others within the nearby mutant community which drew the attention of shield; in 2012, they’d reached out in an attempt to recruit her– it was six months after the initial contact when she’d finally agreed. returning to the us, melika relocated to a small apartment in inwood, from where she would commute to shield headquarters each day to assist as a foreign liaison and logistics specialist under the watchful eye of agent alexander weston.

    since then, melika has found great kinship in the woman known as bobbi morse, even returning to africa together on at least one occasion on behalf of shield ( and perhaps for personal reasons, as well. ) now as in childhood, melika is someone can easily interact with and get to know others, always excited to meet new people and make new friends.

[neitherlandslibrary]

Happy International Women’s Day

to all the female-identifying people! 

As we could not put everyone on the gifset, we also want to shout out to all the woman inside and outside the show

Character in the show: Callie, Camille, Carol, Cindy Gaines, Copy Girl, Crying Woman, Dr. Jennifer London, Dragon, Emily Greenstreet, Etta, Eve, Female Professor, Fray, Genji, Gretchen, Harriet, Healer Faye, Hedge #1,  Homicide Detective  #1, Irene McAllistair, Iris, Kimber D'Antoni, Kira, Lia, Librarian Rona, Mackenzie, Old Woman, Orgy Girl #1, Orgy Girl #2, Phyllis, Prof. Pearl Sunderland, Poppy, Professor Bigby, Psychic Girl #2, Rainbow Girl, Receptionist, Sam Cunningham, Shelia, Stone Queen, Sylvia, The Prophet, The White Lady, Whitley, Young Hedge, AD, Arielle, Arleen, Ashley the Bookie, Baba Yaga (and the girl she posess), Beatrice McAllister,Beatrix, Becky, Dana, Doctor Meers, Dr. Higgins, Evelyn,Fairy Queen, Fillorian Mother, Goldie, Hanna, Harriet, Healer Tara, Heloise,Homeless Lady, Jane Chatwin,Marina Andrieski,Mellony, Napster, Natural Student #1,Nurse#1, Nurse#2, Persephone, Physical Kid #1, Poppy, Professor Lipson, Prudence Plover, Quentin's Mother, Rhona, Scared Woman 36,Shara,Shoshana, Silver, Skye, Sonia 36, Spectre, Stephanie Quinn, Stephanie's Friend, Suzie, TV Crew, Victoria, Water Dragon,Zal, Zelda and all uncredited characters!

off cameras woman : Adela Baborova, Aeryn Gray, Alexandra Rojek, Allison Gordin, Alma Kuttruff, Alyssa Jacobson, Amber Crombach, Amber Waters, Ana Lossada, Ana Lossada, Angie Kennedy, Anna Register, Annalese Tilling, Anne Grennan, Ashley Biggs, Ashley Mason, Athena Wong,Audrey Himmer-Jude, Aylwin Fernando, Barbara Jansen, Beth Williams, Blair Richmond, Blythe Bickham, Breanna Watkins, Bree Brincat, Briana Skye, Brittney Diez, Caitlin Groves, Candice Harvey, Cara Doell, Carmen Lavender, Carole Appleby, Caroline Milliard, Carolyn McCauley, Carolyn Williams,Carrie Audino ,Cassandra Parigian, Cathy Darby, Chere Theriot, Cherie Bessette, Cherie Smid, Cheryl Callihoo, Christina Nakhvat, Clara George, Clarinda Wong, Coreen Mayrs, Crystal Mudry, Danielle White, Debbie Douglas, Deborah Burns, Deborah Burns, Deneen McArthur, Denya McLean-Adhya, Desiree J. Cadena, Donna Stocker, Elie Smolkin, Elizabeth Rainey, Elle Lipson, Emily Nomland, Emily Upham, Emily Weston, Emmanuelle Charlier, Errin Clutton, Eunice Yeung, Eva Abramycheva, Gilda Longoria, Ginge Cox, Grace Delahanty, Heike Brandstatter, Helen Geier, Irina Berdyanskaya, Irwin Figuera, Janene Carleton, Janet D. Munro, Janice MacIsaac,Janice Williams, Jayne Dancose, Jenni Macdonald, Jennifer Gilevich, Jennifer Kaminski, Jennifer Machnee, Jennifer Nelson, Jesse Toves, Jessica Goodwin, Jessica Williams, Juli Van Brown, Julia Holt, June E. Watson, Justin Coulter, Kai Lesack, Kara Bowman, Karen Lorena Parker, Karina Partington, Karley Stroscher, Karly Paranich, Kate Marshall, katerina Motylova, Kathie Singh, Katie Letien,  Katrissa 'Kat' Peterson, Kelli Dunsmore, Kendelle Elliott, Kristy Jelinek, Kyla Rose Tremblay, Kyle Landry, Laura Dickinson, Laura Schiff, Lauren Aspden, Lauren Beason, Laurie Lieser, Leslie Cairns, Lisa Blaxley, Lisa Chandler, Lisa Godwin, Lisa Pouliot, Lisa Pouliot, Lisle Fehlauer, Liz Goldwyn, Lucie Elwes, Luisa Abuchaibe, Lyne Talbot, Lynn Werner, Madeline Jensen, Madison Mah, Madison Penland, Magali Guidasci, Maisie Lucas, Margot Ready, Maria Gleeson, Marie Marolle, Marijke Richman, Martha Dietsche, Mary Hubert, Meghan Kelly, Michelle Kabatoff, Michelle Kee, Michelle Yu, Miluette Nalin, Mimi Dejene, Nadia Alaskari, Natasha Wehn, Nicole Bivens, Nina Göldner, Patricia Jagger, Patti Henderson, Paula Antil, Polina Nikolai, Pricilla Rodgers,Priya Ayengar, Rachel O'Toole,Rita K. Sanders, Rudy Jones, Sam Ochotta, Sarah McLauchlan, Sera Gamble, Shae Salmon, Shae Salmon, Shailey Horton, Shannon Courte, Shannon Kohli, Shannon McArthur, Sharon Dever, Shelly Goldsack, Shelly Shaw, Sina Nazarian, Sondra Durkse, Sonia V. Torres, Sophia Delgiglio, Stephane Bourgeault, Stephanie Plett, Sue Blainey, Sumner Boissiere III, Sunil Pant, Taja Perkins, Tamara Daroshin, Teresa Brauer, Tracey McLean,Tracie Hansen, Tracie Leaphart, Tracy Craigen, Vanja Cernjul, Wendy Foster, Wendy Snowdon, Wendy Talley 

(Source IMDB) 

[synchronousemma]

Friday, 24th June (Midsummer): An exploring party to Box Hill

Read the post and comment on WordPress

Read: Vol. 3, chs. 7–8 [43–44]; pp. 240–247 (“They had a very fine day” to “equal, kindly intercourse”).

Context

The Westons, the Woodhouses, the Eltons, Harriet Smith, Jane Fairfax, and Frank Churchill travel to Box Hill. Emma and Frank Churchill flirt. Emma levels an insult. Mr. Knightley scolds. Frank Churchill returns to Richmond in the evening.

We know that this occurs a day after the Donwell Abbey party at “almost Midsummer” (vol. 3, ch. 6 [42]; p. 234), “not [...] above six-and-thirty hours” (vol. 3, ch. 9 [45]; p. 254) before Frank’s return to Richmond on “the 26th” (vol. 3, ch. 14 [50]; p. 289).

The party at Box Hill is the eighth and last “major scene” in the novel per Marcia Folsom (2004, p. xxxi).

Note that the sections “The Insult” and "The Remonstrance" contain spoilers.

Readings and Interpretations

The Great Outdoors

The outing to Box Hill closely follows the strawberry-gathering party at Donwell in time and in emotion; indeed the two scenes are often analyzed as a pair. For Margaret Doody, “a scene of near fulfillment and frustration among the red berries brings on the storm of sexual frustration and anger on Box Hill” (p. 348).

Doody notes that, in light of the fictional nature of “Highbury,” “[t]he important scene on Box Hill in Emma represents an unusual use by Austen of a real and specific outdoor site. In a most interesting departure the action moves away from the settlements (Saxon and Norman) so strongly insisted on elsewhere in the novel. We enter a kind of no-man’s-land, not quite civilization. The expedition transports everyone to a pocket of time as well as an alternative space” (p. 346).

Many critics note that the unusually far abroad setting of Box Hill coincides with a lack of moral or social cohesion. Samuel Burchell, for example, writes that physical space becomes a metaphor for isolation in the description of the outing:

Emma, alone in her selfish and thoughtless existence, is involved in one misunderstanding after another […]. In many ways the picnic at Box Hill becomes the symbol for this tissue of misunderstandings. At the start of the day the appearance of everything was splendid: “They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in favour of a pleasant party.” But reality—misunderstanding—appears as the people make their way onto the scene: “There was a languor, a want of spirits, a want of union, which could not be got over.” This want of union is more than merely simple misunderstanding of fact; it is the graphic presentation of man’s loneliness. (p. 150)

Burchell argues that, for Jane Austen, this isolation is morally culpable: “misunderstanding and isolation will exist as long as pride, vanity, and weakness exist” (ibid.). Similarly, Alistair Duckworth writes that “the specter of social fragmentation comes closest to actualization” on Box Hill:

On Box Hill, where, as one eighteenth century description has it, the mazes make it “very easy for amorous couples to lose and divert themselves unseen,” a “principle of separation” [p. 240] divides the company into separate groups. There is a “want of union” [ibid.] which the indiscriminately benevolent Mr. Weston is quite incapable of harmonizing: “The Eltons walked together; Mr. Knightley charge of Miss Bates and Jane; and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill” [ibid.]. […] [H]ow greatly is the separation to be deplored, and how appropriately does Jane Austen distinguish between the selfishness of the Eltons, the social stewardship of Knightley—he at least is concerned about the fate of single women in society—and the continued and misguided collusion of Emma and Churchill, with Harriet, as usual, in tow. What follows on the hill is an emblem of a vitiated society where selfishness is uncurbed and no publicly accepted rules of behavior permit free and “open” communication. (pp. 176–7)1

Hating Miss Bates

Throughout the novel, Emma has a particular horror of Miss Bates. David Minter writes that “Emma stands in sharp contrast to her world” on this point, given that “the striking thing about Miss Bates is that everyone tolerates her with more grace than Emma, including people more than equally vain, self-indulgent, and callous” (p. 53):

Far from being a matter of one hasty insult, the problem is of long-standing. Emma has always been “rather negligent” in her conduct to Miss Bates [vol. 2, ch. 1 [19]; p. 99]; in fact, she simply finds Miss Bates “too good natured and too silly” (p. 65). But what is here meant by “good natured”; and how does it differ from the qualities Emma consistently admires in the members of her family […]? The distinctive form Miss Bates’s good nature takes can, I think, be defined; and it is closely related to the particular form her self-indulgence takes. Complacent and uncritical, Miss Bates simply refuses to be demanding either of self or of life. From first to last she stands as an embodiment of implicit refusal to demand that self and life compel abundance and style to cohere. From Emma’s point of view, Miss Bates is too good natured precisely because she is content to be, like her speech, an undifferentiated “incessant flow” through which is “lost” the peculiar richness Emma deems most worth cherishing. (pp. 53-4)

John Wiltshire similarly notes Emma’s tolerance of others, and others’ tolerance of Miss Bates, and asks “[w]hat then is it about Miss Bates that gets under Emma’s skin?” He answers:

Miss Bates’s frequent effusions of gratitude are so intrinsic a part of her social presence—‘You are very kind’; ‘so very obliging’; ‘such a very kind attention’ etc.—that they obviously contribute to Emma’s irritation and antagonism. […] The iteration of ‘so very obliging’ is a constant reminder that, as Knightley is to put it later, Miss Bates has ‘sunk from the comforts she was born to’; a reminder of social inequality, and thus, as Emma must instinctively recognise, of the obligation to oblige. Thus Miss Bates, unconsciously and as it were helplessly, exacts her due from that social contract which has so much to do with the kindness that is Emma’s conceptual nexus. (p. 112–3)

The Insult

Emma insults Miss Bates on Box Hill in a moment that the “interpretive history of Emma repeatedly records […] as ‘the emotional climax of the novel’” (Rosmarin, p. 332): As John Wiltshire writres, “[y]ou brace yourself for this moment, however many times you have read Emma, and when it comes it is still ghastly. ‘Ah! Ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me—but you will be limited as to number—only three at once’” (p. 115).

Emma’s especial dislike of Miss Bates, and the awkwardness, discomfort, and disappointment of the much-looked-forward-to outing, perhaps combine to produce the conditions for her insult. Wiltshire, amongst other critics, notes the strained circumstances of the day:

If at Donwell, Emma is at ease, the opposite is true of her mood at the picnic. Here she is the victim of the tensions running though the ill-sorted group that Mr Weston has assembled. (He’s assumed that Emma won’t mind Mrs Elton’s being in the party, and that Mrs Elton won’t mind Emma’s; he doesn’t realise that Knightley and Elton are on awkward terms, and he certainly doesn’t know that Frank and Jane have had an altercation the previous afternoon.) Churchill, tense and cross, pretends to be light-hearted, forcing Emma to flirt (she might consider how she’s wounding Harriet: he is knowingly wounding Jane). (p. 114)

Similarly, per David Minter:

Both Frank Churchill’s role and Emma's response to deficiency, to languor, to disunity, and to dullness are central throughout the Box Hill outing; in particular, they are essential to appreciation of Emma’s rudeness to Miss Bates […]. For one implication of the extreme demands Emma makes of life is precisely that she is dangerous—is a threat both to herself and to others—when she is disappointed. This and frustrated and bored […]. Both in this episode and elsewhere, Emma’s extreme demands [for variety and excitement life cannot supply] turn on her to lower rather than exalt her and to injure rather than benefit those around her. (pp. 52–3)2

Emma, therefore, is unable to “resist” uttering her unkind witticism. Per Wiltshire, it is “the ‘mock ceremony’ of Emma’s manner [that] gives her insult its wounding edge”:

What is so confronting about this moment is not just that it exposes the underbelly of Emma’s feelings about Miss Bates—the antagonism and irritation that, as the novel has hinted, runs very deep. It is a shameful betrayal of her own kindness, and, as Mr Knightley soon tells Emma, it is cruel. What makes it so much worse is that because one likes Emma, is committed to her, one instantly feels the shamefulness with her. (p. 115)

In keeping with an interpretation of Austen in which everyday matters have monumental moral significance, dire readings of Emma’s insult predominate. Alistair Duckworth, for example, writes:

[W]hat Emma does when she so flagrantly insults Miss Bates is to violate a social contract; spurred on by Churchill, she forgets her social obligation (or proper role) and adopts the role of an ironic and theatrical wit. After the insult, and a short-lived attempt to play a conundrum game (the last game of the novel), the group erupts into barely concealed hostility (between Mrs. Elton and Emma, between Elton and Churchill, between Churchill and Jane), and were it not for Knightley’s fidelity to his social duty and Emma’s ability soon after to realize the “evil” of her words and wit and truly to repent of them, the ultimate social vision of the novel would be bleak. (p. 177)

Similarly, Mary-Elisabeth Tobin argues that “Emma’s insults and slights at Box Hill have enormous political significance”: “In neglecting her duty as a member of the gentry to care for those members of her society who are less fortunate than she, Emma has clearly violated the rules of an intricate and delicately balanced system of duty and obligation, of benevolence and gratitude. Neglecting her charitable duties is tantamount to severing the ties that bind this society together” (p. 421). Some critics emphasize the personal as well as the social and political stakes: for David Southward, Emma’s behavior amounts to nothing less than a “ruthless humiliation” (p. 769).

In response to this general tendency, Claudia Johnson writes that “[t]he leisurely eddying of Emma’s pace, combined with the insistent ordinariness […] of so much of its material, makes strident moralizing sound a bit strained. As a result, the identification and assessment of the faults which are supposed to make [Emma’s] humiliation and reform necessary have a hyperbolic ring to them” (pp. 127–8). She allows that “Emma transgresses in much the same way [as Mrs. Elton] when she mocks Miss Bates at Box Hill”; however, “shameful” as this insult may be, it “stand[s] out precisely because” “infractions” of its kind on Emma’s part are “infrequent” (pp. 129–30). Johnson also notes Emma’s charity to the Bateses (p. 128): indeed, Tobin’s charge that Emma’s conduct towards Miss Bates has before this been characterized by “neglect” stands against Emma’s later reflection that she had been “remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact” (vol. 3, ch. 8 [44]; p. 247).

Jenny Davidson, for her part, expresses uncertainty as to “to what extent we would condemn this moment ourselves, as readers, or find Emma deeply morally culpable for what is partly just an inability to resist showing off her own verbal ingenuity,” were it not for the fact that “the novel stages a significant reproach for her in the form of Mr. Knightley’s most severe reproof” (p. 72).

M and A.

Immediately after Emma’s mockery, “Frank’s father […] tries to break the silence caused by Emma’s cruel witticism by producing an ‘indifferent piece of wit’ of his own” (Knoepflmacher, p. 652). U. C. Knoepflmacher writes:

Amply demonstrating his indifference to Emma’s gravest imperfection in the book, Mr. Weston asserts the “two letters of the alphabet” best expressing “perfection” to be “M. and A.—Em—ma” (III, ch. 7, [243]). His gallantry, as inopportune as it is inappropriate, only helps to sharpen our sense of Emma’s fault. But Mr. Weston’s incongruous praise also applies to an imperfection less applicable to Emma than to his own son: the disparity that may exist between the empty professions of a sentiment and an actual truth of feeling. (ibid.)

Critics take this conundrum (as Duckworth noted, the last in a string of games in the novel) as representative of various things. For Cecily Devereux, the joke demonstrates “the narrative’s concern with the slippery nature of words, and the ease with which they may be misunderstood” (p. 43). Joseph Litvak writes that the disaggregated “characters” of Emma’s name remind us that “character need not be a homogeneous entity, that it is an aggregate of many different characters, that the self is no more a fixed identity than the name, a construct susceptible to fragmentation and rearrangement” (p. 770). Thus Knightley’s “characteristic moral seriousness” in objecting to the descriptor of “perfection” (since “[t]wo letters have been left out of Emma’s name, and Knightley wishes to see Emma’s character made whole”) does not succeed in tamping out what there is to “enjoy[]” in the “badness of the pun” (ibid.).

Mark Loveridge writes that “there is another reason (one which is probably over Mr. Weston’s head) why M and A should add up to perfection”; he speculates that the conundrum may be a reference to Francis Hutcheson’s Enquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), in which “M” represents “Moment of Good” and “A” a moral agent’s “Ability”. Thus:

Benevolence, or Virtue in any Agent, is as M/A, or (M + 1)/A, and no Being can act above his natural Ability; that must be the Perfection of Virtue where M = A, or when the Being acts to the utmost of his power for the publick Good; and hence the Perfection of Virtue in this case, or M/A, is as Unity. (Hutcheson, volume II, section iii, p. 172; qtd. in Loveridge, p. 215)

This and the other occasional reference to the Moral Sense writers in Emma evidence a “habit or method of filling the novel with small jokes and party games to do with words and phrases”: this one, in particular, is likely a joke “made for the author and the reader (or those readers in the know) to share, at the expense of the characters” (p. 215). Jillian Heydt-Stevenson writes of this joke that, “unknowingly, Mr Weston identifies what is missing from Emma’s character as well as from almost every member of the Box Hill party: each ‘agent’ acts for his or her own interests rather than for the […] ‘publick Good’ (p. 157).

The Remonstrance

Mr. Knightley famously chides Emma for the insult she levels at Miss Bates: “‘I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation?’” (p. 245). (Of course Miss Bates, as a woman, had not received “an education that would enable [her] to earn [her] livelihood”—she is one of those “women of the middle and lower upper classes who without fortune and independence either lived in genteel poverty or worked as governesses or teachers” (Tobin, p. 415).)

Critics tend to read Knightley’s remonstrance as unbiased and morally righteous. Lynch Hall writes that Knightley “brings Emma (and the reader) to realize that she must tolerate the ridiculous, and that Miss Bates’s ‘situation should secure [her] compassion’ [p. 246]. Mr. Knightley’s disinterested charity and chivalry, then, is brought forward by Miss Bates’s limitations; he is solidified as the hero and is revealed as worthy of the heroine’s hand” (p. 173). David Medalie likewise sees Knightley’s chiding as arising from the immediate circumstance of Emma’s insult, contextualizing it within the social and economic system of Austen’s day:

In many ways, Mr Knightley’s scolding of Emma comes as a surprise—not that he reprimands her, but the way in which he does so. One might have thought that he would deprecate discourtesy in general, insisting that Miss Bates is as entitled as anyone to that due measure of courtesy which is the right of everyone in a civilised society. But that is not what he does. Instead, he bases his criticism on a very specific assessment of the two women’s respective positions in society. […] [H]ere he seems to be taking his insistence on always seeing people in terms of birth, class and money to extraordinary lengths, with the rather startling suggestion that he might even have been willing to overlook Emma’s conduct if Miss Bates enjoyed the same social and economic status […]. What appears to be a form of tendentious morality in him shows instead an understanding of the vulnerability of those disempowered through penury or lack of social status, and the extent to which such people cannot defend themselves against someone like Emma. (p. 6)3

Michele Larrow, who argues that “[a]s Mr. Knightley becomes more aware of his love for Emma, he uses his sympathetic imagination better,” differs from this tone of unmitigated praise. She views this incident as an intermediary step in Knightley’s learning sympathy:

In Mr. Knightley’s remonstrance of Emma’s insult to Miss Bates at Box Hill, he again assumes the role of judge and seems oblivious to the pain his comments will cause Emma. His words are harsh, yet they echo Adam Smith’s view that one has to consider the situation of others to understand their feelings: “‘How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation?’” When he tells her, “‘It was badly done, indeed! . . . to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her,’” his moral censure is almost overpowering. (n.p.)

Larrow also reminds us that, at this point, Knightley fears that he has lost Emma to Frank. In light of this fact, we can consider that he is trying to issue one last corrective lesson before he resigns Emma to Frank’s bad influence (thus “I will tell you truths while I can,” p. 246, emphasis mine); or else, that his vociferousness is partly fueled by the jealousy induced by watching the two young people flirt all afternoon.4 

The Remorse

A conventional reading of Emma views it as containing cycles that are repeated, but with a difference: Emma goes through several iterations of mistake and remorse that ultimately leave her morally improved. For Marcia Folsom, the aftermath of Box Hill marks Emma’s “second great epiphany” (p. 49):

She actually experiences the loss of self-esteem implied in the word “mortified”: “Never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life.” Emma’s habit of expressing herself in triads is here compressed, and this compression makes the blow palpable: “She was most forcibly struck.” In a surprisingly clinical word for Emma’s mood, the narrator says, “She never had been so depressed.” Unlike her buoyant return to her mind’s youthful cheerfulness the morning after Mr. Elton’s proposal, this time, “Time did not compose her” [vol. 3, ch. 7 [43]; p. 246], and she is “just as determined when the morrow came” to fulfill her resolution as she was in her night of remorse [vol. 3, ch. 8 [44]; p. 247]. The difference between these two nights of painful self-criticism suggests she has actually changed and is now more capable of truthful self-examination. (2016, p. 50)

Davidson questions the idea that Emma’s complete moral reform has resulted from this incident:

The skeptical reader may note that it is the fact of Mr. Knightley’s thinking badly of her, rather than deep remorse about the cruelty of her words to Miss Bates, that seems to be emphasized by the language here [“The truth of his representation there was no denying”], and many readers have felt about Emma that the novel’s drama of correction and submission is undermined or at least ironized by the fact that Emma is the stronger personality of the two and has no good reason to reform herself permanently. I think this ambivalence or uncertainty is embedded in the novel’s very language; at the very least, it’s something that can be argued back and forth nearly endlessly. (pp. 72–3)

I would note, however, that Mr. Knightley has disagreed strongly and even displayed anger in arguments with Emma elsewhere in the novel (about Harriet and Robert Smith, for example, or about the probable merits of the as-yet-absent Frank Churchill) without producing in Emma an immediate conviction of “[t]he truth of his representation.”

Ultimately, the Box Hill scene is an enigmatic one. Michael Gamer writes of the “pleasure [Austen] takes in providing surfaces that point to corresponding depths, only to expose those apparent depths as surfaces that are never fully known or explained”:

Emma’s final chapters may expose the "real" alliances that have driven the episode and that constitute Emma’s ending, but they cannot account for Frank Churchill’s behavior or describe Jane Fairfax’s feelings, let alone explain Emma’s loathing of Jane or her reasons for attacking Miss Bates. Even Knightley's attempt to close the episode by chastizing Emma leaves fundamental questions unanswered, such as whether Emma should support Miss Bates because she has fallen from her former stature (i.e., has become an object of sympathy) or because she remains, however tenuously, of the same class (i.e., is a person whose fall matters). Knightley’s attempt to reduce the episode to class, moreover, occurs at the end of a chapter until then surprisingly free of such awareness; and class analysis, so useful in previous chapters, does not even begin to provide insight into how people behave at Box Hill. It neither answers why the parties divide as they do nor explains why they converse with such strain. […] I find myself, therefore, believing less in the deep interiority of Emma’s characters—an interiority that would defy surface—than in Austen’s belief in a social density that is unsortable, unexplainable, and therefore unanswerable to any discursive formation. (n.p.)

Footnotes

On Box Hill’s association with lovers and sex see Doody (pp. 346–9).

Contrast Susan Morgan, who argues that an essential aspect of Emma is how it demonstrates that the demands of the imagination need not be unfulfilled.

For another formulation of this argument see Tobin.

On Knightley’s remonstrance see also also Babb (pp. 187–8).

Discussion Questions

What makes Emma fail to tolerate Miss Bates despite being able to tolerate her father? What motivates Emma’s insult?

Do you agree that the general critical tone of moral condemnation of Emma’s insult is overweaning, as Johnson suggests?

Should we perform a “humanist” or “transhistorical” reading, “interpret[ing] Emma’s thoughts and actions as a variation of the growing pains endemic to a universal young adulthood” (Tobin, p. 413)? Or is an understanding of “political, social, and economic problems specific to early nineteenth-century Britain” necessary to understand the significance of this episode (ibid.)?

What is the significance (on the level of textual effect, plot, or character) of Mr. Weston’s conundrum?

What motivates Mr. Knightley to reprove Emma? What is the overall tone of his remonstrance?

Does Emma’s remorse stem from her own reflection and moral code, or from Mr. Knightley’s disapproval? What hinges on the answer to this question?

Bibliography

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