"[Mrs. Morgan] had found out the wonderful difference between anticipation and reality; and that life, even to a happy woman married after long patience to the man of her choice, was not the smooth road it looked, but a rough path enough cut into dangerous ruts, through which generations of men and women followed each other without ever being able to mend the way."

--Mrs. Oliphant, The Perpetual Curate (1864)

* * *

Margaret Oliphant (1829-97) published journalism, biography, literary history, translations, travel accounts, and nearly 100 novels. Widowed in 1859, she wrote furiously to pay her husband's debts and to support her children. The Perpetual Curate bears a certain resemblance to the work of Anthony Trollope--a focus on the secular, rather than spiritual, lives of the English clergy; an exploration of the minutiae of Victorian gender relations--but, unlike Trollope, Oliphant did not necessarily see female meekness as strength, nor, as you can see from the above quotation, did she romanticize marriage.

It's been interesting spending time with her novel over the past week. Even as she unrolled a predictably wholesome and happy-ending plot, she inserted small daggers everywhere: wives who cannot wholeheartedly adore their husbands, nice young gentlemen who minister sweetly to the poor while stupidly ignoring the emotions and anxieties of the local shopkeepers. If Trollope worked to codify Victorian definitions of gentility, Oliphant slyly questioned them. I was very pleased to be reading this book. 

* * *

Yesterday was so hot that Tom decided not to work outside at all. He spent the morning at the photo co-op, scanning negatives; and I cleaned bathrooms and then suddenly decided that I was going to stop doing housework. I needed a day off too, so I slowed myself down: read Roger Angell's gorgeous and hilarious descriptions of baseball spring training in 1962 Florida, made gazpacho and mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, took a nap next to the fan, gave in to the torpor of an August 92-degree Sunday.

But today I'll be back in the saddle: stacks of editing, the housework I didn't do yesterday, a phone call with Teresa about The Four Quartets, our borrow-a-daughter Lucy coming over for dinner. The outside air is as thick as peanut butter, and even with the AC the house air is sticky. We got a tiny burst of rain last night, which watered nothing, and only made the humidity denser. This weather is tiring.