Being Happy Thinking: Tidbits from Stevenson's "Walking Tours"

View of Glen Frankfort (aka Island Prairie Park), where I have spent many hours "being happy thinking".



Dear readers,

My apologies for the irregular blog posts, which will continue to be irregular for a while yet. Working part-time and attempting to finish a novel before August do not leave much time for reading and reflecting on Great Books. Thus this week I do not have much prepared to share with you except a passage pulled from my faithful commonplace book. (See my first post on that here.) It's a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson's essay "Walking Tours".

A bit ironically, this particular selection has nothing to do with either walking or touring, but rather sitting by the fire. It's one of Stevenson's numerous odes-in-prose on the importance of leisure. I thought it particularly appropriate for me just now--the past several months I've been working my head off, applying for scholarships, saving for college, and writing a fantasy novel. But next week I'm putting that all away for seven full days, going on retreat at a small Byzantine Catholic women's monastery in Ohio. I know it's going to be a challenge, denying my workaholism for an entire week, but I believe this retreat will be the best thing I've done for myself for years. I look forward to many hours of being "happy thinking".

Stevenson does not venture into the spiritual effects of leisure, although he comes very close, in the moralistic tone he was rather fond of. What I mean to say is, that although he does not bring up the essential part God plays in contemplation, some of his points are spot-on anyway. I'll expound further as we proceed through the quote. Without further ado...selections from RLS's "Walking Tours":

Or perhaps you are left to your own company for the night, and surely weather imprisons you by the fire. You may remember how Burns [Robert Burns, 18th-century Scottish poet], numbering past pleasures, dwells upon the hours when he has been "happy thinking." It is a phrase that may well perplex a poor modern, girt about on every side by clocks and chimes, and haunted, even at night, by flaming dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realize, and castles in the fire to turn into solid, habitable mansions on a gravel soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the Hills of Vanity.


The poor, clock-haunted moderns Stevenson was referring to, by the way, were the inhabitants of Victorian Britain. How much deeper have we moderns of the 21st century fallen among the "flaming dial-plates"! From education to the workplace to being up on the latest technology, so much of society is focused on that vague thrill of "getting ahead". Apparently the phenomenon isn't quite so modern as we thought, if Stevenson sensed it back in the 1870s.

Another interesting point: "Hills of Vanity" might strike one as an odd phrase at first reading. The word "vanity" generally has negative connotations, calling to mind the shallow, the ephemeral, the ultimately meaningless. But in this context, Stevenson uses the word to the precisely opposite effect. The Land of Thought and Hills of Vanity are those pursuits of leisure which seem vain in the eyes of a utilitarian, materialistic world, but in truth are a return to the contemplation of goodness, truth, beauty, and God--everything that makes us human.

To continue:

Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent, and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts--namely, to live.

I rather think Stevenson would have disapproved of social media. Even when things like Facebook and Twitter are being used in good causes, so much of it simply makes us crave constant distraction. One of the immediately noticeable things, when watching people in a public place (like the restaurant where I work), is the apparent inability of many individuals to sit still for two minutes without taking out their phones. This includes adults, not just tech-savvy teens! Passing contented, quiet hours without the iPhone or tablet on hand might be unimaginable for these technology users. But our brains and souls need rest--to nurture things like creativity, real relationship, and wisdom. As Stevenson says, to live!

As we've seen, even these couple of short passages contain a plethora of points for reflection. Stevenson was fond of writing about imagination and leisure--just recall any of his famous poems from A Child's Garden of Verses, or, less well known, his essay "An Apology for Idlers" (a defense of leisure against constant work and study). His words are excellent reminders for all of us about the perils of over-activity. That's what our Christian Sabbath is for--to slow, to stop, to turn back towards our Center, Who is God. I look forward to a whole seven days of slowing down as I take my retreat next week in Ohio.

The Ordered Inner Life: Socrates' Portrait of the Just Man

When you have read, you carry away with you a memory of the man himself; it is as though you had touched a loyal hand, looked into brave eyes, and made a noble friend; there is another bond on you thenceforward, binding you to life and to the love of virtue.

~Robert Louis Stevenson, "Books Which Have Influenced Me"

 

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the beautiful sentence above in reference to the relationship he felt with his favorite authors. It happens to be a great description of how I feel about Stevenson. But there's another literary character I've come to know recently, who fits the bill perfectly as well--Socrates.

 

Although Socrates did not technically write any of his famous dialogues--his student Plato did--it is still Socrates' personality which dominates the text. Anyone who has even skimmed works like the Republic or the Apology will be familiar with his persona: witty and yet methodical, clear-minded, inquisitive, humble, and never budging an inch from his principles. The most vivid impression I have received of Socrates is one of immense integrity. Here is a lover of truth and virtue the world has seldom seen.

 

Over the past few months I have been meandering my way through the Republic. Although it's not exactly what you'd call light reading, I have found it surprisingly refreshing. The clarity of Socrates' speech and logic seems a mental cleansing which sets my thoughts in order. Besides that, Socrates' own enthusiasm for the topics at hand is infectious. He livens the long abstract discussions with amusing metaphors like the following, from the fourth book of the Republic. The context: Socrates and his disciple Glaucon have been trying to pin down the essence of justice. On the way they've gotten a bit sidetracked, creating an ideal State. But now Socrates wants to return to the original issue:

The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us; for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know.

I can picture him speaking, with a twinkle in his eye, like a jovial professor. It's little things like that which distinguish Great Books from textbooks--a Great Book conveys a person.

The longer passage I'd like to share with you today is a bit more serious, but an equally vivid painting of Socrates' personality. A little later on in Book IV, after a long and winding discussion on the nature of justice, education, and the State, Socrates finally lays out his portrait of the ideal just man:

But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,--he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has...become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act...always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.

I'm afraid I cannot convey the whole genius of this little summary without diving into an explanation of Socrates' definition of justice and his division of the soul into the rational and the passionate. But that second phrase which I highlighted above simply arrested me the moment I read it. In the light of Socrates' piercing insight, I recognized that many of my own anxieties, frustrations, and failings are a result of a disorganized inner life. More often than not my desires are self- and pleasure-centered, when they should be love- and truth-centered. I found the call to set my inner life "in order" an inspiring one. And unlike Socrates' ideal man, I don't have to be "my own master" and "my own law". Considering my imperfections, that's probably a good thing. Instead, as a Christian, I discover both in the Person of Christ.

I hope I have succeeded in conveying at least a little of Socrates' unique personality through these quotes. Reading his dialogues has truly been what Stevenson described: a blessed obligation, binding me to life and the love of virtue.






Battle of the Round-house: Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped" (Part 2)

Happy 164th, RLS

One hundred and sixty-four years ago on this day, in Edinburgh, Scotland, a great storyteller was born. Yes--Robert Louis Stevenson. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while already know how much I admire him. This post, the second in a series of posts on his novel Kidnapped, is the one "birthday present" I can give to the fine writer who only lived 44 years. So thank you, Stevenson, and happy birthday.

~

What is it about great stories that is so real to us? My siblings and I talk of the Shire, Minas Tirith, and Mordor as if they were quite real places. Not in a literal sense, I suppose. But it seems that way, because although Middle-earth can only ever live in our imaginations, it's still something we share. We feel the fireside at Bag End must have really existed, in some sense, because we've all "been" there; we have the same memories of it, though we all read Lord of the Rings at different times. Those worlds--in books that are very precious to us--seem to take on a life that does not depend on our imagination.

Perhaps this is foolishness. But I bet that at least a few--if not many--book-lovers have had the exact same experience. So allow me, over the next few posts, to share with you a handful of the places I've lived, and loved, between the covers of a book called Kidnapped.

The Round-house

The roundhouse was built very strong, to support the breaching of the seas. Of its five apertures, only the skylight and the two doors were large enough for the passage of a man. The doors, besides, could be drawn close: they were of stout oak, and ran in grooves, and were fitted with hooks to keep them either shut or open, as the need arose. (Kidnapped, Chapter 9, "The Man with the Belt of Gold")

Welcome to the captain's quarters of the merchant ship Covenant. If you're an ordinary sailor, you're probably not in here much. But if you're a lad named David Balfour, this is where you lived for a while--an involuntary cabin boy, waiting on a dour captain and a drunken first mate, on your way to seven years of slavery in the American colonies. By all rights, the round-house should be one of your least favorite memories.

 

But it's also the place where you meet Alan Breck Stewart. It's the place where you decide to save a man's life, though he is a stranger--indeed, might have been an enemy in any other situation. You're a law-abiding citizen; he's a wild outlaw. And yet, for the sake of the right, you throw in your lot with his:

...I walked right up to the table and put my hand on his shoulder.

"Do ye want to be killed?" said I.

He sprang to his feet, and looked a question at me as clear as if he had spoken.

"O!" cried I, "they're all murderers here; it's a ship full of them! They've murdered a boy already. Now it's you."

"Ay, ay," said he; "but they haven't got me yet." And then looking at me curiously, "Will ye stand with me?"

Your answer to that question is the true beginning of your story. In the next few hours, through the heat of battle, you will forge a friendship with this "wild Hielander" that will change your life. "Let your hand keep your head, for the grip is coming," says Alan. It comes fiercely, and against all the odds--you win out. So far you've been deceived by malicious relatives and kidnapped by greedy sailors; the round-house is your first victory. 

The roundhouse was like a shambles; three were dead inside, another lay in his death agony across the threshold; and there were Alan and I victorious and unhurt.

He came up to me with open arms. "Come to my arms!" he cried, and embraced and kissed me hard upon both cheeks. "David," said he, "I love you like a brother! And O, man," he cried in a kind of ecstasy, "am I no a bonny fighter?"

 

So he is, though you're rather too shaken by shedding your first blood (albeit in self-defense) to compliment your new friend on his swordsmanship. But the night isn't over yet. You and Alan have driven off the treacherous sailors for now, but there's no sense taking any chances. Inside the little fortress of the round-house, you set up your night-watch:

 

So I made up my bed on the floor; and he took the first spell, pistol in hand and sword on knee, three hours by the captain's watch upon the wall. Then he roused me up, and I took my turn of three hours; before the end of which it was broad day, and a very quiet morning, with a smooth, rolling sea that tossed the ship and made the blood run to and fro on the round-house floor, and a heavy rain that drummed upon the roof.

 

There's something haunting about that muted rain, after the clash and fury of last night. But you are glad of it. It gives you a chance to take a breath, regain your wits, ponder this strangely fortunate twist of fate. Your comrade-in-arms stretches out in the captain's bunk, sleeping like a child. Who is this Alan Breck Stewart, after all? Well--you'll know him better presently.

 

The triumphant duo

To be continued





A Very Old Friend: Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped" (Part 1)

It's an undisputed fact among book lovers that some tomes simply feel like friends. These titles may or may not be on the Great Books list. They may or may not have led you to deep insights on the nature of man, or the purpose of the universe. They are simply the books you fall in love with, the ones you crave to live inside, for a little while.

This book, for me, was Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped. I could try to make some profound literary analysis of it, or unravel its eternal themes. But I can't say that Kidnapped ever pointed me, directly, towards those lasting truths that I typically look for in a good story. And yet it is a good story--a braw tale, to put it in the Scots--easily my favorite, and strangely monumental in my memory.

This is simply my excuse for the fact that this post, and any other posts I write on Kidnapped, are less like a literary analysis and more like a love story, littered with random details no one is interested in except myself. But it's the only way I can ever hope to convey my experience with this book. Kidnapped is an old friend. I couldn't write about it any other way.

~

I met this friend on a gray Sunday morning in February of 2011, on my older brother's dresser. I had wandered into his room bored, looking aimlessly for something to do in the half hour or so before we left for church. The book was a fat red one, a collection of Stevenson's more popular poems, short stories and novels. I couldn't tell you why I decided on Kidnapped. I had heard the title before, of course, but had no conception of the plot. Actually I had a vague notion the whole story was set in America. So I had no preparation for a plunge into 1750s Scotland.

 

Straightaway I fell in with Davie Balfour's honest, pleasant narration. So what if the style was a bit old-fashioned? So what if the dialogue threw out these strange Scottish words I'd never seen before, like "muckle", "siller", "kittle". It all drew me into a new, entrancing, very real world.

For the rest of the day, I could hardly tear myself from the book. It didn't matter that I knew, at the time, virtually nothing about the Jacobite Rebellions. The pure thrill of story carried me along at a breakneck pace. Each emotion-packed scene made a deep impression--David's first dark hours aboard the brig; the victory of the roundhouse; the flight through the heather; the quarrel...scenes that I read and re-read, almost trembling with excitement. Kidnapped had kidnapped me, completely.

I finished the book that same afternoon, in a kind of delirium. Never had I been so utterly absorbed in a story for an entire day. And yet the experience was exhausting. I had read so furiously that the plot was a blur, and even the names of the characters did not stick in my mind. Only those particular scenes, those moments of high romance, the memory of the thrill.

Besides that, hardly a thought of the book crossed my mind for the next year. Then one night in March 2012, a friend in church choir gave us a big box of books (always an event in the Woods household). Wedged somewhere between a coffee-table book on Versailles and a Michael Crichton novel, sat a splendid old edition of Kidnapped. Charles Scribners's Sons, 1946. Dark blue cloth binding, only a wee bit tattered, emblazoned on the front with a gorgeous N.C. Wyeth illustration. (N.C. Wyeth deserves a blog post all to himself; I have a mini-obsession with his work.) Inside, pages softly browned, deeply scented with that wise, musty, old-book smell.  Graced throughout with more N.C. Wyeth gems.

Delighted, I immediately claimed this treasure as my own. That night, flipping through it almost with awe, I fell upon this passage, at the beginning of Chapter 7, which had overwhelmed me a year ago:

I came to myself in darkness, in great pain, bound hand and foot, and deafened by many unfamiliar noises. There sounded in my ears a roaring of water as of a huge mill-dam, the thrashing of heavy sprays, the thundering of the sails, and the shrill cries of seamen. The whole world now heaved giddily up, and now rushed giddily downward; and so sick and hurt was I in body, and my mind so much confounded, that it took me a long while, chasing my thoughts up and down, and ever stunned again by a fresh stab of pain, to realise that I must be lying somewhere bound in the belly of that unlucky ship, and that the wind must have strengthen to a gale.

Instantly I was there again; no, I was David Balfour again, bound and despairing in the stormy bliges of the Covenant. The adventure had not faded. It awaited me once more.

To be continued





Storm Season with Stevenson and Twain

Last week summer storm season came rumbling and rolling into Chicago. Almost every day was damp and gray and on Saturday we had two storms--a short one in the afternoon and a fury of a downpour in the evening. It all reminded me of two of the most vivid storm descriptions in literature that I've ever read--one a passage from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and the other a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I'll share them in a moment, but first I'd like to note that Twain and Stevenson have more in common than thunderstorms. They were contemporaries. They admired each other's work, corresponded, and even met during one of Stevenson's trips to America. Apparently RLS, on first getting Huckleberry Finn, read it twice through; and Twain's family "bathed in" Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

 

The two authors met in New York in September of 1887, where they sat on a park bench and chatted away the hours. Later Twain recalled part of their conversation:

 

Robert Louis Stevenson and I, sitting in Union Square and Washington Square a great many years ago, tried to find a name for, the submerged fame, that fame that permeates the great crowd of people you never see and never mingle with; people with whom you have no speech, but who read your books and become admirers of your work and have an affection for you. You may never find it out in the world, but there it is, and it is the faithfulness of the friendship, of the homage of those men, never criticizing, that began when they were children. They have nothing but compliments they never see the criticisms, they never hear any disparagement of you, and you will remain in the home of their hearts' affection forever and ever. And Louis Stevenson and I decided that of all fame, that was the best, the very best. (from twainquotes.com)

 

A beautiful little reflection from two deservedly famous writers.

 

Now for the first of my summer storms for you:

 

Pretty soon in darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten.... Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely, and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest--fst! It was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of treetops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down-stairs--where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know. (from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 9)

 

This has got to be the most lyrical and true-to-life description of a storm in prose that I've ever read. No doubt it was a passage Stevenson loved when he was reading (and re-reading) the book!

 

Stevenson's own contribution to "storm literature" is in poem form, and the setting is transferred from the ole Mississippi to the South Pacific island of Samoa (where RLS spent his last years). But the images created are no less vivid. Read it out loud--his genius use of alliteration summons the very sounds and pictures of a storm.

 

Tropic Rain

(From Songs of Travel)

 

As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well,

Rings and lives and resounds in all the bounds of the bell:

So the thunder above spoke with a single tongue,

So in the heart of the mountain the sound of it rumbled and clung.

 

Sudden the thunder was drowned--quenched was the levin light...

And the angel spirit of rain laughed out loud in the night.

Loud as the maddened river raves in the cloven glen,

Angel of rain! You laughed and leaped on the roofs of men;

And the sleepers sprang in their beds, and joyed and feared as you fell.

You struck and my cabin quailed; the roof of it roared like a bell,

You spoke, and at once the mountain shouted and shook with brooks.

You ceased, and the day returned, rosy, with virgin looks.

And methought that beauty and terror are only one, not two;

And the world has room for love, and death, and thunder, and dew;

And all the sinews of hell slumber in summer air;

And the face of God is a rock, but the face of the rock is fair.

Beneficent streams of tears flow at the finger of pain;

And out of the cloud that smites, beneficent rivers of rain.

 

His line there on "beauty and terror are only one, not two"...strikes me as very Chestertonian. But we'll leave that literary comparison for another day!

 







Stevenson's Impossible Dream: "If This Were Faith"

 

 

Is there anyone who hasn't shivered with joy listening to the great song "Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha? (If you haven't heard it, go find a recording of it right now--you need to shiver with joy.) I cannot hear it without being lifted up and rejuvenated to my own quest for truth as a writer and a Catholic. Don Quixote may have been mad, but he was righter in his spiritual world than most of the rest of us. There's only one way to dream the impossible dream, fight the unbeatable foe, bear with unbearable sorrow, and reach the unreachable star--by submitting ourselves to God's grace and love in our daily lives (in this I am still a very novice page!). 

 

However, in this post I'd like to direct your attention to a non-fictional but no less unlikely Don Quixote, a skinny Scot with a penchant for words--Robert Louis Stevenson. RLS was a fine writer and poet, but he also loved people, and had a strong sense of right and wrong. A description of him written by his wife, Fanny, shows this better than any words of mine:

 

...[T]he path for himself showed plainly enough before him, and it was his duty to swerve neither to the right nor the left. He believed he had no rights, only underserved indulgences. He must not eat unearned bread, but must pay the world, in some fashion, for what it gave him,--first, materially, then in kindness, sympathy, and love. Class distinctions, so strictly observed in England, he could not tolerate and never gave the slightest heed to their limitations. "Ladies?" he said in reply to an observation by a visitor, "one of the truest ladies in Bournemouth, Mrs. Waats, is at this moment washing my study windows." Once, coming upon a crowd of young roughs who were tormenting a wretched drunken creature of the streets, he pushed his way through them, and amid their jeers offered his arm to the woman and escorted her to the place she called home. "Don Quixote," he once said to my son, with a startled look, "why, I am Don Quixote!" Too much ease frightened him; he would occasionally insist on some sharp discomfort, such as sleeping on a mat on the floor, or dining on a ship's biscuit, to awaken him, as he said, to realities; and nothing pleased him more than to risk his life or health to serve another. [...] Meanness or falsity or cruelty set his eyes blazing, and his language on such occasions became far from parliamentary.

 

So we even see that Stevenson explicitly identified with Cervantes' mad knight.

 

Recently while reading through RLS's poetry collection Songs of Travel (during breaks at driver's ed class, to keep my imagination from going totally dead), I encountered what seems like Stevenson's own "Impossible Dream". Written over a hundred years before the acclaimed song, "If This Were Faith" expresses the same sentiments in very stirring verse:

 

If This Were Faith

 

God, if this were enough,

That I see things bare to the buff

And up to the buttocks in mire;

That I ask nor hope nor hire,

Not in the husk,

Nor dawn beyond the dusk,

Nor life beyond death:

God, if this were faith?

 

Having felt Thy wind in my face

Spit sorrow and disgrace,

Having seen Thine evil doom

In Golgotha and Khartoum,

And the brutes, the work of Thy hands,

Fill with injustice lands

And stain with blood the sea:

If still in my veins the glee

Of the black night and the sun

And the lost battle, run:

If, an adept,

The iniquitous lists* I still accept

With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood,

And still to battle and perish for a dream of good:

God, if that were enough?

*lists=  jousting arena

 

If to feel, in the ink of the slough,

And the sink of the mire,

Veins of glory and fire

Run through and transpierce and transpire,

And a secret purpose of glory in every part,

And the answering glory of battle fill my heart;

To thrill with the joy of girded men

To go on for ever and fail and go on again,

To be mauled to the earth and arise,

And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not seen with the eyes:

With the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night

That somehow the right is the right

And the smooth shall bloom from the rough:

Lord, if that were enough?

 

The rhythm of this poem is the most jagged I have ever seen from Stevenson; I feel he must have written it in one of his high passions against meanness or falsity or cruelty. But read the last stanza again. It is so rich I cannot take it all apart. It's not just the ode of the knight. It's the cry of the artist, seeing beauty transpierce--(what a word!)--transpierce and transpire our fallen world. It's the song of the sinner, being mauled to earth by passions only to rise again. It's the joy of the saint--to contend for that lovely Thing not seen with eyes, but with the soul.

 

Let us all take hope in God's "impossible" dream for us that is the most real thing in the world.

 

 

 





Honest Alan: A Tribute

A note: Of late I have been posting on the sublime, the good, the true, the beautiful. This post is on the merely fun. Please forgive my outburst of Scottish geekiness!

Another note: My apologies, I got the date mixed up! June 2, not May 2, was my Scottish epiphany. Well, here is Alan anyway, a month early.

~

Looking at the date today, I realized it was rather significant--for me at least. Two years ago today began my obsession with all things Scottish. The blame lies with a writer named Robert Louis Stevenson, who brought to life one of my favorite fictional characters on the face of the earth. Introducing Alan Breck Stewart: clansman of Appin, Jacobite rebel, swordsman, piper, Gaelic poet, with an elephant-sized ego and a heart of gold. You'll be seeing several versions of him in this post, but the one I always carry in my mind is Stevenson's first description of him in Kidnapped:

He was smallish in stature, but well set and as nimble as a goat; his face was of a good open expression, but sunburnt very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted with the small-pox; his eyes were unusually light and had a kind of dancing madness in them, that was both engaging and alarming...

Please enjoy my own tribute in verse to my favorite swashbuckling Highland rebel. And then go read Kidnapped.

The Ballad of Alan Breck

O, have ye heard o' Alan Breck?

O, cam ye by nae word?

He's a dancin' madness in his e'e*,

An' a hand on the hilt o' his sword!

*eye

Young Alan trod the hills and crags,

His foot kenned* every stone,

For Appin and the Breadalbane

Were his heart-land an' his home.

*knew

Down by lang Loch Leven's shores

With the wind in the birches cryin',

He'd whistle mony a merry tune,

As would leave the birds all sighin'.

Now Alan was a swordsman's son,

He learned the fencer's trade,

An' often joy and pride he took

In the singin' o' the blade.

 

 But then man Alan's father died,

An' left him gey* an' poor,

So Alan went for sodger's* pay,

In the army o' King George.

*very   *soldier's

Ay, Alan once a red coat wore,

Because he had nae money,

But now he's changed it for a blue,

An' one that's much mair bonny!

He cannae stay in Scotland now,

For the savin' o' his neck,

For there's a hundred gleamin' pounds

On the head of Alan Breck.

Go on, ye redcoats, search the hills,

An' guard the Glencoe heights,

But all ye'll catch is a fleetin' glisk*

O' the canny Jacobite.

*glimpse

 

An' 'ware, ye seamen, when the fogs

Come swirlin' round the deck;

A mettled voice, a flashin' e'e--

It may be Alan Breck.

He's a Hielandman forever,

An' a Stewart tae the end;

Tho' a feisty, fechtin'* warrior,

He's a true an' doughty friend!

*fighting

O, have ye heard o' Alan Breck?

O, cam ye by nae word?

Ye'll ken him by his dancin' e'e,

An' the hand on the hilt o' his sword!

 

~Poem Ó

Mary Jessica Woods, 2013

 

 

 

 

Project R.L.S. #2 ~ Discovering Stevenson

Whenever I explore Robert Louis Stevenson's work more deeply, I always feel a sense of gratitude. He is a constant joy to me and I can hardly imagine what my experience of literature would be like without him. Now that he's made such a big impact on me, I find it interesting to look back and trace how it all began.

My first exposure to Stevenson was, naturally enough, his Child's Garden of Verses. When we were little my dad would have me and my siblings memorize poetry, including several of the more famous selections from Child's Garden. I did not know anything about Stevenson at the time, of course, but already I began to associate his name with adventure, imagination, and wonder. One poem I remember in particular was "Pirate Story", in which three children roam the high seas of their backyard field. There was a certain line of description which left a permanent impression on me:

And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.

The image had never occurred to me before, but every time afterwards that I saw long grass rippling in the wind, I thought of that poem, and of the sea.

The only other experience of Stevenson that I had at the time I enjoy looking back and laughing at. We used to have an abridged illustrated edition of Treasure Island, one of those with pictures on every other page. I used to take out the book and look at all the pictures but not read a single word of the story. Later we acquired a real edition of Treasure Island, which I tried to read a few times, but somehow never got past the first couple chapters--complaining that I couldn't understand it. (I'm still not sure how I managed that, but the truth remains: I didn't read Treasure Island straight through until last summer!)

As the years went on I became vaguely aware that Stevenson had written two other books called Kidnapped and Jekyll and Hyde, but I had no interest in either of them, especially since I had barely any idea of what they were about. I was also probably too busy reading Brian Jacques' Redwall series. But our parents insisted that we read classics occasionally, so I remember one day finding Kidnapped on my brother's bed where my mom had left it. I skimmed the summary on the back cover, and under the strange impression that the story took place in the Americas, I idly flipped it open and read part of a chapter. It didn't excite me. I was also still under the strange impression that classics were boring.

So I'm not exactly sure what happened between then and a certain fateful day in February 2011. It was a chilly Sunday morning and I was looking for something to do before we went to Liturgy. In my brother's room I spotted a large book on his dresser--a collection of famous Stevenson novels. I have no memory of what prompted me to do it, but I decided to read Kidnapped.

Project R.L.S. #1 ~ Some Stevenson Suprises

Robert Louis Stevenson, being the wonderfully versatile writer he is, never fails to surprise and delight me. In my first official "Project R.L.S." post I'll share two Stevenson surprises that I enjoyed this week. The first is a short poem that I read today; the second is a very unique letter that I discovered exploring around on the Internet on Wednesday.

I do not know the title of this poem, but I thought it lovely. I found in included in the entry on Stevenson in a beautiful old set of children's Compton's Encyclopedia that we have. The poem is brief, so I'll share the whole thing:

If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:--
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in.

Splendid, isn't it? It's Stevenson glorying in the small and vital things of life. He often does, of course, but here my favorite line is, "Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take / And stab my spirit broad awake"!  Note the sudden movement from "pointed" to "broad"--the contrast is breathtaking. And there is also a poignancy in the image of the soul being stabbed by the Lord--slain by His beauty and love. But it is only our old, dull life that is really slain, for we are now "broad awake" in the new life of God.

My second Stevenson encounter was no less splendid. The other day on Librivox.com I discovered a piece by Stevenson called "Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu". The title piqued my interest, especially as the said Father Damien, of Molokai, was only recently declared a saint.

The Glorious Defense

Seige of the Roundhouse, from Kidnapped. N.C. Wyeth

Battle of Glen Falls, from The Last of the Mohicans. N.C. Wyeth

The latest book that I'm reading for my Great Books program in homeschool is The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper. I'm very glad to be able to read a novel for school--and an adventure novel at that!--after working through Descartes and the Federalist Papers!

Today in Mohicans I read the chapters where Hawk-eye the frontier scout, his Indian friends, and Major Heyward are defending their island hideout at Glen Falls against Iroquois warriors. The scene, though written in prose that's over-fancy and romantic by novel standards today, is incredibly exciting. (By the way, I haven't finished it yet, so nobody tell me what happens, please...) And it reminded me instantly of another "siege scene" from that favorite book of mine, Kidnapped. Not just the situation, but even some of the dialogue rang familiar. Compare these two quotes, the first from Hawk-eye, the second from Alan:

"Freshen the priming of your pistols--the mist of the falls is apt to dampen the brimstone--and stand firm for a close struggle, while I fire on their rush." (The Last of the Mohicans, Chapter VII)

"And now," said Alan, "let your hand keep your head, for the grip is coming." (Kidnapped, Chapter X)

Or try these two:

"You believe, then, the attack will be renewed?" asked Heyward.

"Do I expect a hungry wolf will satisfy his craving with a mouthful! They have lost a man, and 'tis their fashion, when they meet a loss, and fail in the surprise, to fall back; but we shall have them on again...." (The Last of the Mohicans, Chapter VII)

"No, there's not enough blood let; they'll be back again. To your watch, David. This was but a dram before meat." (Kidnapped, Chapter X)