Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6

247-1 The fogs of London are famous. A genuine London fog seems not like the heavy gray mist which we know as a fog, but, as Dickens says, like “palpable brown air.” So dense is this brown air at times that all traffic is obliged to cease, for not even those best acquainted with the geography of the city can find their way about.

251-2 Bedlam is the name of a famous asylum for lunatics, in London. In former times the treatment of the inmates was far from humane, but at the present time the management is excellent, and a large proportion of the inmates are cured.

252-3 Workhouses are establishments where paupers are cared for, a certain amount of labor being expected from those who are able.

252-4 In England formerly there existed a device for the punishment of prisoners which was known as the treadmill. A huge wheel, usually in the form of a long hollow cylinder, was provided with steps about its circumference, and made to revolve by the weight of the prisoner as he moved from step to step.

253-5 Links are torches made of tow and pitch. In the days before the invention of street lights, they were in common use in England, and they are still seen during the dense London fogs.

254-6 Saint Dunstan was an English archbishop and statesman who lived in the tenth century.

254-7 This is one of the best-known and oftenest-sung of Christmas carols. In many parts of England, parties of men and boys go about for several nights before Christmas singing carols before people’s houses. These troops of singers are known as “waits.”

258-8 The splinter-bar is the cross-bar of a vehicle, to which the traces of the horses are fastened.

261-9 There is a play on the word bowels here. What Scrooge had heard said of Marley was that he had no bowels of compassion—that is, no pity.

277-10 Scrooge sees and recognizes the heroes of the books which had been almost his only comforters in his neglected childhood.

284-11 “Sir Roger de Coverley” is the English name for the old-fashioned country-dance which is called in the United States the “Virginia Reel.”

300-12 Biffins are an excellent variety of apples raised in England.

301-13 Baker’s here does not mean exactly what it means with us. In England the poorer people often take their dinners to a baker’s to be cooked.

303-14 A bob, in English slang, is a shilling.

311-15 Five-and-sixpence means five shillings and sixpence, or about $1.32.

319-16 In what sense has Scrooge “resorted to the sexton’s spade that buried Jacob Marley” to cultivate the kindnesses of life?

320-17 “I love my love” is an old game of which there are several slightly different forms. The player says “I love my love with an A because he’s—,” giving some adjective beginning with A; “I hate him with an A because he’s—; I took him to—and fed him on—,” all the blanks being filled with words beginning with A. This is carried out through the whole alphabet.

346-18 The Laocoön is a famous ancient statue of a Trojan priest, Laocoön, and his two sons, struggling in the grip of two monstrous serpents. You have doubtless seen pictures of the group. Dickens’s figure gives us a humorously exaggerated picture of Scrooge and his stockings.

349-19 This is a slang expression, used to express incredulity. It has somewhat the same meaning as the slang phrase heard in the United States—“Over the left.”

349-20 Joe Miller was an English comedian who lived from 1684 to 1738. The year after his death there appeared a little book called Joe Miller’s Jests. These stories and jokes, however, were not written by Miller.

356-1 Is there a stove or a fireplace in the room where the poet sees Christmas kept?

356-2 What is cheer? What is festal cheer?

356-3 What is a “train”? How could it be called a hospitable train? Whose train was it?

356-4 What is a rite?

356-5 What bells were rung?

356-6 What is a mass?

356-7 What is a stoled priest? What is a chalice? What did the priest do when he reared the chalice?

356-8 The kirtle was a dress-skirt or outer petticoat. Sheen means gay or bright.

357-9 What is mistletoe? Is there anything peculiar in its habits of growth? What did they want of it? What custom is still said to follow the use of mistletoe at Christmastime?

357-10 A vassal was one of the followers of the baron and paid for protection or for lands he held by fighting in the baron’s troops or rendering some other service.

357-11 A tenant held lands or houses, for which he paid some form of rent.

357-12 A serf was a slave.

357-13 At Christmastime even the powerful were willing to cease from ruling and join with the common people.

357-14 Instead of grand ceremonies, everybody joined in simple amusements, without pride or prejudice.

357-15 Who was the heir? What was he heir to? Why did he have roses in his shoes?

357-16 Was he permitted to dance with village maidens at any other time?

357-17 Without losing any of his dignity.

357-18 An old-fashioned game of cards.

357-19 Who brought the tidings of Salvation? To whom was it brought? Who was “the crown”?

358-20 A lord was one who had power and authority, while a squire was merely an attendant upon a lord.

358-21 Brawn, in England, is a preparation of meat, generally sheep’s head, pig’s head, hock of beef, or boar’s meat, boiled and seasoned, and run into jelly moulds.

358-22 What are bays? What is rosemary? Why should the boar’s head be called crested? Where was it? Why was it there? Why does the poet say it frowned on high?

358-23 Who was a ranger? What did he do? Do you see any reason for his being green-garbed?

358-24 What is meant by baiting? Who tore the dogs? Why did he tear them? What made the monster fall?

358-25 Wassail (wossil): the liquor in which they drank their toasts, and which signified the good cheer of Christmastime.

358-26 Moves about; that is, the liquor in good brown bowls was merrily passed along the table from hand to hand.

358-27 What was near the sirloin? How many kinds of meat were there on the table? Is anything mentioned besides meat? Do you suppose they had other things to eat? Did they have bread and vegetables?

359-28 In the mumming or acting of these maskers could be seen traces of the ancient mystic plays in which religious lessons were given in plays that were acted with the approval of the church.

359-29 Did the maskers have rich costumes? What did they wear over their faces? How did they conceal their clothing?

359-30 Does the poet think that rich maskers would enjoy their pleasure as much as the old-fashioned Christmas merrymakers?

361-1 In some of our American towns and cities a curfew bell is rung as a signal that the children must leave the streets and go to their homes. Many years ago it was the custom in English villages to ring a bell at nightfall as a signal for people to cover their fires with ashes to preserve till morning, and as a signal for bed. The word curfew, in fact, is from the French, and means cover fire.

361-2 The word knell suggests death, and gives the first mournful note to the poem.

361-3 The sheep are shut up for the night in the folds or pens. What are the tinklings? Why should they be called drowsy?

362-4 The poem is supposed to have been written in the yard of Stoke-Pogis church, a little building with a square tower, the whole covered with a riotous growth of ivy vines. The church is in the country, not many miles from Windsor Castle; and even to this day the beautiful landscape preserves the rural charms it had in Gray’s time. We must not suppose that Gray actually sat in the churchyard and wrote his lines. As a matter of fact, he was a very careful and painstaking writer, and for eight years was at work on this poem, selecting each word so that it should express just the shade of meaning he wanted and give the perfect melody he sought. However, he did begin the poem at Stoke in October or November of 1742 and continued it there in November, 1749; but it was finished in Cambridge in June, 1750.

362-5 Reign here means dominion or possessions. Why is the bird called a moping owl? Why is her reign solitary? What word is understood after such in the third line of this stanza?

362-6 Rude means uneducated, uncultured, not ill-mannered.

362-7 A clarion is a loud, clear-sounding trumpet.

362-8 In the church are the tombs of the wealthy and titled of the neighborhood, and in the building and on the walls are monuments that tell the virtues of the lordly dead. It is outside, however, under the sod, in their narrow cells, that the virtuous poor, the real subjects of the poet’s thoughts, lie in quiet slumbers.

362-9 What evening cares has the busy housewife? Was she making the clothes of her children, knitting, mending, darning, after the supper dishes were put away?

363-10 Where were the children? Were they waiting for their father’s return? To whom would they run to tell of his coming?

363-11 The glebe is the turf. Why should it be called stubborn?

363-12 Jocund means joyful.

363-13 The word Ambition begins with a capital letter because Gray speaks of ambition as though it were a person. The line means, “Let not ambitious persons speak lightly of the work the rude forefathers did.”

363-14 The inevitable hour (death) alike awaits the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, and all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave.

363-15 This is perhaps the most famous stanza in the poem. The following story is told of General Wolfe as he was leading his troops to the daring assault on Quebec in 1759: “At past midnight, when the heavens were hung black with clouds, and the boats were floating silently back with the tide to the intended landing-place at the chosen ascent to the Plains of Abraham, he repeated in low tones to the officers around him this touching stanza of Gray’s Elegy. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Wolfe, ‘I would rather be the author of that poem than the possessor of the glory of beating the French to-morrow!’ He fell the next day, and expired just as the shouts of the victory of the English fell upon his almost unconscious ears.”

364-16 Now, an aisle is the passageway between the pews or the seats in a church or other public hall: in the poem it means the passageways running to the sides of the main body of the church.

364-17 A storied urn is an urn-shaped monument on which are inscribed the virtues of the dead. Why should a bust be called animated? What is the mansion of the fleeting breath?

364-18 In this instance provoke means what it originally meant in the Latin language; namely, call forth.

364-19 The line means, “Some heart once filled with the heavenly inspiration.”

364-20 A poet or musician is said to sing, and the lyre is the instrument with which the ancients accompanied their songs. To wake to ecstasy the living lyre is to write the noblest poetry, to sing the most inspired songs.

364-21 The books of the ancients were rolls of manuscripts. Did any of those persons resting in this neglected spot ever write great poetry, rule empires or sing inspiring songs? If not, what prevented them from doing such things if they had the ability?

365-22 At first this stanza was written thus:

“Some village Cato, who with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Tully here may rest;
Some Caesar guiltless of his country’s blood.”

It is interesting to notice that at his first writing Gray selected three of the famous men of antiquity, but in his revision he substituted the names of three of his own countrymen. Who were Hampden, Milton and Cromwell?

365-23 The three stanzas beginning at this point make but one sentence. Turned into prose the sentence would read: “Their lot forbade them to command the applause of listening senates, to despise the threats of pain and ruin, to scatter plenty o’er a smiling land, and read their history in a nation’s eyes: their lot not only circumscribed their growing virtues but confined their crimes as well; it forbade them to wade through slaughter to a throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind, to hide the struggling pangs of conscious truth, to quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, and to heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride with incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.”

365-24 This line means that they could not become rulers by fighting and killing their fellowmen as Napoleon did not long afterward.

366-25 Many of the English poets wrote in praise of the wealthy and titled in order to be paid or favored by the men they flattered. Gray thinks that such conduct is disgraceful, and rejoices that the rude forefathers of the hamlet were prevented from writing poetry for such an end. The Greeks thought poetry was inspired by one of the Muses, and genius is often spoken as a flame.

366-26 Madding means excited or raging.

366-27 The frail memorials were simple headstones, similar to those one may see in any country graveyard in America. On such headstones may often be seen shapeless sculpture that would almost provoke a smile, were it not for its pathetic meaning. A picture of Stoke-Pogis churchyard shows many stories of the ordinary type.

366-28 The rhymes were uncouth in the sense that they were unlearned and unpolished.

366-29 What facts were inscribed on the headstones? Elegy here means praise. Where were the texts strewn? Why were the texts called holy? What was the nature of the texts? Can you think of one that might have been used?

367-30 This is one of the difficult stanzas, and there is some dispute as to its exact meaning, owing to the phrase, to dumb forgetfulness a prey. Perhaps the correct meaning is shown in the following prose version: “For who has ever died (resigned this pleasing, anxious being, left the warm precincts of this cheerful day), a prey to dumb forgetfulness, and cast not one longing, lingering look behind?”

367-31 Thee refers to the poet, Gray himself. The remainder of the poem is personal. Summed up briefly it means that perhaps a sympathetic soul may some day come to inquire as to the poet’s fate, and will be told by some hoary-headed swain a few of the poet’s habits, and then will have pointed out to him the poet’s own grave, on which may be read his epitaph.

368-32 Due means appropriate or proper.

368-33 As first written, the poem contained the following stanza, placed before the epitaph; but in the final revision Gray rejected it as unworthy. It seems a very critical taste that would reject such lines as these:

“There scatter’d oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are show’rs of violets found:
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.”