GRAPES

Daniel Hayman

April 24, 2006

“The Chicago Literary Club”

GRAPES

The titles of our Chicago Literary Club papers are often conundrums. You, the listeners, hear the many possibilities of what the papers may really be about. Grapes may be about a life of whining as I make claims to be some modern-day Job, or would the imagery of purple feet give it an antiquated spice? Yet there is a very modern cutting edge aspect to my subject. The recent biotech convention held at McCormick Place had new advances for the raising of the best grapes. Insects are able to sense what are the finest grapes. Now scientists are extracting olfactory glands from these insects and placing them on computer chips. Thus, grape growers will be able to distinguish the best product. I never thought that when I viewed the vineyards of Chandon-Moet in Epernay or Napa Valley that scientists would give my talk on grapes an even greater natural robustness. My past dinner with the Countess Chandon-Moet would have in the future an even larger simulation of Proustian elegance and refinement. My future imbibing of the Countess’ private stock of Dom Perignon champagne might make all these grapes bubble with more intense delight. The Frenchman Rabelais is, of course, very germaine to this oration on the grape. Panurge worshipped the Holy Bottle and gave a magical rendition of the winely potion in Gargantua and Pantagruel. Grapes still today produce that sense of Rabelain humor when overused. Members of an international wine society gather each year in Chinon on Rabelais’ birthday in order to celebrate another year of a successful grape. One long-time friend has attended that social event. In his own life he had to decide whether he was to become a monk or a merchant of fine French wines. One of these paths might have led him to sour grapes just as it did for the fox and the point of this paper. Unlike Aesop’s fable, this talk will be only slightly foxed – just like my 16^th century Charles V manuscript.

In our society of cultural advertisement overload, most of us have experienced the infomercial. Tonight I will be doing an altered version. With our membership in the Chicago Literary Club, we have committed our lives to a certain portion of serious reflective reading that goes against the mainstream flow of our American culture. Every society in history has had only a very small number of people dedicated to books that have a magnitude of depth. Recently I have experienced the ultimate gamut of the extremes of bookstores by going from City Lights in San Francisco to the bookstore in the Mall of America in Minneapolis. According to the gospel of Matthew 13:25-40, how does one separate the wheat from the tares? With the continuing Tsunami-like tidal wave inundation of publications, where can we, the reader, turn for successful guidance on the path to intellectual enlightenment? We are besotted with wailing sirens of supposed insight and light, but do we really know if what they claim has any merit? Will we be able to set high standards for our own bar of cultural and literary tastes, or will we waste the precious moments of our existence with troglodyte texts?

My own path out of the shadows of the cave has taken many labyrinthine turns. In 1980 I started my 20 different trips to London. In Chicago I had become friends with Christopher Lloyd, who eventually became Surveyor of the Queen’s Paintings and actually lived in St. James Palace. On most of these trips we were able to meet for a convivial experience. About seven years ago over lunch he told me about this bookshop in London called Heywood Hill. It was owned by the Duke of Devonshire and run by a man named John Smith, whose name sounds totally nondescript. However, the reality is quite different. He was a true man of the 19^th century. Virtually any book that I pulled off his shelves, he could instantly give me an arcane literary description of the text. I purchased some absolutely fascinating pieces from him. A.L. Rouse and Trevor-Roper were two outstanding Oxford historians, who had recently died. Rouse had written a biography of Jonathan Swift. I bought Rouse’s own copy of the complete six volume set of Swift’s correspondence which contained Rouse’s handwritten notes on Swift’s letters. Additionally I purchased Rouse’s copy of Sidney Painter’s biography of Marcel Proust. The book discussed an ancestor of mine, Laure Hayman, who was a courtesan to the nobility of Europe and who was Proust’s model for Odette. Proust, himself, was said to have had a physical relationship with her.[1]

From Trevor-Roper’s library I got his outstanding two volume set of Mark Pattison’s essays and his extensive emendations of a translation of Aubrey’s Education. Another very nice piece was Bernard Berenson’s personal gift of One Years Reading for Fun 1942 to Trevor-Roper. This work represented a terrific combination of two outstanding 20^th century scholars. Also another prize I received was the biography of Joan of Arc written and signed by Vita Sackville West to her secret noble lady lover. The noble lady’s son had sold his mother’s gift to John Smith. Finally our business dealings reflected the 19^th century gentlemen’s agreement. Mr. Smith was truly uncomfortable with the technology associated with the credit card. He would let me take the books, or he would send them to me. I would then check the value of the pound and send him the amount in dollars with my personal check. It was a rare pleasure to deal with such trust.

In January of 2004 I received in the post a letter from Heywood Hill that contained an important advertisement for a new literary periodical called Slightly Foxed. My book buying habits were now seriously altered as I quickly returned the card to receive my first subscription. In March the first real reader’s quarterly of Slightly Foxed arrived. Immediately, as I have done ever since, I devoured the contents like a Roman epicurean dining at Trimalchio’s banquet in Petronius’ Satyricon. Each delicate morsel never disappointed my intellectual palette. The editors explained their purpose the best when they said “Welcome to the first issued of Slightly Foxed, the magazine for adventurous readers – people who want to explore beyond the familiar territory of the national review pages and magazines and who are interested in books that last rather than those that are simply fashionable.”[2] That stated purpose has been the core for the selection of reading that I do in my life. Once one has spent his or her time engaged in a higher standard of literary quality, it is difficult to lower one’s level especially when there is so much from which to choose. In fact, the editors claim to be the literary knights that defend the quality of the small and individual against the corporate and mass produced. In this case, the medieval hierarchy is reversed because the literary knights are defending us, the puny reader, against the once mighty Crown bookshops. Additionally, the term ‘slightly foxed’ not only, as previously stated, refers to the brown discoloration spots in paper but also the average person’s state of mind as he scans the bookcases of the typical corporate store looking for the work that will take him into the literary abyss. When I was at the so-called bookstore in the Mall of America, I felt a dark ice glaze over my eyeballs and my mind sped as a comet towards a Lucretian ennui of the black void that was encased in hundreds of feet of ice. Now back to a thaw.

Each quarterly covers a massive array of subjects from poets to novelists to travel writers to eccentrics of sundrous sorts. My first example is the review of J.H. Prynne by Rachel Campbell-Johnston. If I was to conduct a Gallup Poll of this cultivated literary audience, I am afraid that many of you would never have heard of Prynne’s’ name. Yet many of the leading literary figures in Britain today, like Peter Ackroyd, consider Prynne the most accomplished British poet. However, according to this reviewer who was doing a doctoral thesis on Prynne, she was intimidated by his reclusive nature. One of his students congratulated him on his recent marriage and inquired about his wife’s name. Prynne only responded “Mrs. Prynne”[3]. However, his book entitled Poems published by Bloodaxe Press is completely engaging for those people who have an arcane mindset. Permit me to give one small example.

Thinking of You

Not going forward let alone returning upon itself,

the old fat in the can. The old fat rises to a reason

and seems because of its can, not going forward

but in its rank securely, so as to be ready. Divinity

rises to no higher reason since going up along is

returning itself to the can. You choose if you like

whether we stay in the rank or go forward as alone

we can, divinely secured about the midriff. Older

than forward is the way we might go and now

because we do, fat. In the can it is the rancid power

of the continuum[4].

You can see that this poem reflects a weighty matter. It is the melodious sounds of his words and shifting metrical patterns that capture the reader and listeners’ imaginations. All of us over 40 can appreciate the imagery of the girth of a midriff and a rancid smell as Prynne’s can personifies our bodies. In many of his other poems he will utilize the philosophical twists of economics and science. One needs to read him with a clearly caffeinated mind. As our reviewer admits, her study of him may have only been a Prynnic victory.

The novella is another form of literature. Anne Boston analyzes one of the great writers in this genre, Penelope Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald did not begin her novel writing career until she was 62. Obviously she must have had an extraordinary degree of quality life experiences. Boston characterizes her writing as being driven away in a superb limousine, to find that the steering wheel has been thrown out of the window[5]. Boston focuses on The Beginning of Spring, which describes pre-revolutionary Moscow. She also makes reference to the Blue Flower, which is about the life of the late 18^th century German poet, Novalis. I have totally enjoyed both works. As a historian, I am deeply impressed with the magnitude of her historical investigations. I am awed by her insightful understandings of both the Russian and German cultures. Few can match her perspicuity. One feels totally immersed in the cultures of those time periods. Boston quotes a very poignant passage from Fitzgerald’s Beginning of Spring:

“Throughout the winter the house had been deaf, turned inwards, able to listen only

to itself. Now the sounds of Moscow broke in the bells and voices, the cabs and

taxis which had gone by all winter unheard, like ghosts of themselves, and with the

noise came the spring wind, fresher than it felt in the street, blowing up uninterrupted

from the northern regions where the frost still lay.”[6]

This description parallels our own Chicago environment. We interpret the imagery through our own winter/spring experiences, and the osmotic fluidity of her prose permeates our being.

Hazel Wood is one of the co-editors of Slightly Foxed and, needless to say, her pieces are always a delight. Her biographical blurb says that she detested gym class and was a founder member of the Anti-Games League at her girls’ boarding school.[7] With that resume she probably would have qualified for early admission at the University of Chicago under the Hutchins college era. There are two books that she has reviewed that are gems. The first is Mango and Mimosa by Suzanne St. Albans. It is the autobiography of a duchess who grew up in the south of France and on a plantation in Malaysia. Her descriptions do a superb job in capturing life in these two very different places. Wood does a wonderful paraphrase of the jungle life when St. Albans tells of their rescued stork, who enjoyed fielding the shuttlecock when they played badminton and would join them for elevenses. Also their nurse, Marie, Suzanne and her sister each held the hand of their devoted little monkey, while brother John brought up the rear, pushing his pet hen, Titi, tucked up in a doll’s pram with her head on the pillow.[8] My own banty hen on our farm would never have been this cooperative. Usually I got a sharp peck when I was teasing her. For the World War II enthusiasts in the audience, the final part of St. Albans book is a very moving analysis of her journalistic career. She covered the troops from North Africa all the way to Vienna.

Wood’s other review talked about the book entitled Period Piece by Given Raverat. I assume many of you have great interest in studying real intelligent design. This work is for you. Raverat was Charles Darwin’s granddaughter. Unfortunately, she was born in 1885, three years after the death of her famous grandfather. However, she does go into fascinating detail about the visits to her grandmother at Downe in Kent. Personally I still remember my own visit to the home 25 years ago and appreciated how well her narrative matched with my memories of the place. As Wood remarks, the only downside to the book is that you, the reader, will be constantly interrupting your neighbor in order to read them the wonderful snippets from the text.[9] My wife, Kathleen, will vouch for the accuracy of this observation. On March 28^th of this year we were at a private viewing of the Evolving Planet at the Field Museum and a lecture on evolution in the Field’s Library. At the end of the talk I asked a question about Darwin’s grandfather and mentioned the Darwin home. After the formal presentation, a lady came up to me and told me that she was a descendant of Charles Darwin’s brother. She also had read Period Piece and had actually seen Gwen all dressed in black sitting in her wheelchair at her home in Cambridge. She was delighted to learn that my wife was just reading Period Piece and had finished the description of the Raverat home. She said that she had not run into others who had read that autobiography. One never knows what doors one’s reading can open.

Lyall Watson has written a review that focuses on the highly unusual. He discusses a book entitled Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler that talks about the nature of pursuit for the unique, elusive objects that collectors spend lifetimes seeking. David Wilson has assembled the Museum of Jurassic Technology which is dedicated to irony, reality and illusion. It is appropriately located on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles. The first exhibit is about the life cycle of the Cameroonian stink ant. As it grazes along the jungle floor, it inhales a tiny parasite that eventually takes over the ant’s brain. The ant then climbs to the highest tree and impales itself on a twig. Several weeks after its death a spike grows out of its head and sends spores shooting back to the jungle floor. Another exhibit has a piercing devil that has penetrated seven inches of lead.[10] Are these objects fact or fiction? The whole museum forces the viewer to face the ironies of life and define the nature of reality. I have read Weschler’s entire book about David Wilson’s unique place and am certain that you will be intrigued with the plethora of the bizarre and possibly authentic or fake exhibits.

The unusual animal theme continues with Ariane Bankes' review of Douglas Botting’s book, The Saga of Ring of Bright Water: The Enigma of Gavin Maxwell. In this sentence quoted by Bankes the exotic essence of Maxwell’s life is captured. “He was forever being wrapped around lamp posts, shipwrecked on reefs, attacked by wild animals, half-blinded by sandstorms, struck low by diseases unknown to science, robbed by Arabs, cheated by crooks, and betrayed by friends.”[11] Only a person with that kind of background could outdo the cable network’s Animal Planet. Maxwell was traveling through the swamps of southern Iraq and managed to capture a young otter whom he named Mijbil. He proceeded to take the animal on board the plane with a suitcase filled with fish. After many horrific adventures, he finally got the otter to London. There the otter took quite well to his visits to Harrods and enjoyed chewing much of the furniture in Maxwell’s home. Later he transferred both the otter and himself by train to his remote ancestral castle in Scotland. The photographs in the biography are quite impressive as well as the engaging writing about such a wonderfully eccentric character.

Our previous J.H. Prynne reviewer, Rachel Campbell-Johnston, returned with a look at a fictional exotic personage in Conrad’s Nostromo. She rightly points out that this work is not for casual dipping but instead requires the reader’s intellectual and emotional focus as Conrad guides one through this fictional Latin American republic.[12] From my experience of reading this very lengthy novel, I would concur with the review that Conrad does an extraordinary detailed job in painting the fine nuances of this South American country. He so effectively draws the reader into this place that the novel becomes very difficult to put aside. He creates the overwhelming feeling of nothingness. This artistic achievement makes the effort to read Nostromo very gratifying.

The Unquiet Grave, by Cyril Connolly, will be thoroughly dug into by all of you ambitious readers. Connolly’s work was referred to by Hemmingway as one of the very best books that he had ever read. The reviewer in Slightly Foxed, Anthony Perry, captures some of the wit of the text by referring to his own birth date as 1929 – any minute now. Perry cites some of his favorite Connolly passages: “The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married”. Connolly was married three times. Perry’s favorite quotation which should help some of the Germans in this audience is “There is no happiness except through freedom from angst and only creative work, communion with nature and helping others are anxiety free”. I must say I enjoy these prescriptions for contentment. Since this essay is about literary criticism, Connolly’s observations on the discipline are very germaine. He calls it “the feeling of obscure guilt that comes after a day spent in the thankless task of drowning other people’s kittens”.[13] Permit me now to make a final splash hit out of Perry’s unfortunate omission in his review of my favorite uplifting Connolly quote for the day that I have already imposed on a number of people. “In the small hours when the acrid stench of existence rises like sewer gas from everything created, the emptiness of life seems more terrible than its misery.”[14]

The void of existence seems to have escaped our next literary luminary. He lived on the isle of Orkney, off the coast of Scotland. When I visited Scotland, one postcard summed it up very well. There were two pictures of sheep. One had rain beating on the sheep and said ‘Scotland in the summer’, and the other had snow on the sheep with the phrase ‘Scotland in the winter’. If one is to survive in that environment, one has to be exceptionally hardy. I do remember on the Isle of Skye going into the lobby of a local hotel and observing the local residents in a comatose state. On the other hand, Christopher Rush has given us a very moving portrait of a rather remarkable individual, George Mackay Brown. Rush called Brown a craftsman and bard who could spin a web of words with exquisite delicacy, not as a spider and spin-doctor do, to entrap and deceive, but as the minstrel does, to enchant and beguile.[15] I would completely concur with Rush’s assessment of Brown’s work. His Letters from Hamnavoe give us a marvelous view of Scottish life in the 1970’s. He captures with his poetic prose all of the joys and challenges of the myriad details of people’s lives. For example, his opening letter is a touching commentary on the mail, the month’s postal strike, and his final summation te of the problem. “We Orcadians feel very isolated these days as one of the most precious things in life, the communications between friends, has dried up.”[16]

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates, takes a more common slant on communication issues. According to the reviewer, Adele Geras, the cover design of a car made the text initially very unappealing to her. However, the laudatory endorsements of David Hare, Kurt Vonnegut and Tennessee Williams made her realize that the colloquial expression, ‘you can’t judge a book by its

cover’, held true in this particular case.[17] The focus of the work is a subject that many of you tonight would relate to very well. Frank and April Wheeler have two children and are residing in an American suburban home in the 1950’s. Both characters are very unremarkable, but that fact makes the ensuing tragedy of their lives even more poignant. April’s first night failure as an amateur actress symbolically set the stage for the failure of communication between she and her husband. Their dream of moving to Paris and living a life of significance becomes one of the threads that tie the reality and illusions together. Yates has dissected the suburban 1950’s life in a very successful manner. Fiction becomes reality.

The review of “On the Loose”, by Mary Flanagan, makes an interesting contrast to the lives of the Wheelers. One of the features that make Slightly Foxed so successful is that it not only analyzes great out of the mainstream books but also includes additional intriguing stories. Flanagan talked both about Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin, and her own personal story which I will now give a summation. She was a sophomore in college and through her job had saved enough money to travel to Europe. She decided to leave behind her close boyfriend, Michael, who had wanted her to go to Mexico with him. In August of 1963 she was staying in Rome and in need of additional funds when she received a letter that Michael was surprising her and would meet her at the Piazza Navona in Rome. They would then leave for the land that she had always wanted to visit which was Greece. Michael has been awarded five love stars in her mind. While waiting for his arrival, she becomes engrossed in Baldwin’s novel and comments on how the work has transcended both race and gender. The book was finished when Michael arrived and off they went to the Piraeus in Greece to board a ship for one of the islands. They unfortunately left the ship on the wrong island, but still she could not believe that she could ever become any happier. She was right. A week later Michael drowned in the Aegean.[18] The ironies of life are reflected in Yates’ fictional characters and in Flanagan’s real life tale.

In the autumn 2005 edition, the editors announced another tragedy in the production of this periodical. Allow me once again to quote verbatim what has dampened the spirits of these marvelous ladies.

“Sadly, just as we were celebrating the arrival of the summer issue, we lost a member

of our team. On 15 of June, Jennings the cocker spaniel died peacefully in his sleep

at the age of 13. We miss him greatly. He was in on the earliest beginnings of Slightly

Foxed, always beside us at meetings to remind us with a yawn or a discreet whine that

things had gone on too long, always good-humored and enthusiastic. He bore his increasing

deafness and loss of sight without irritability, but it became obvious this year that he was

failing. His brother, Pugwash, by contrast, is in rude health and, after a decent period of mourning, is now enjoying his position as top and only dog. But he lacks Jennings'

subtlety.”[19]

The editors then carry on to locate literary dogs and an appropriate reference to The Difficulty of Being a Dog by the Frenchman Roger Grenier. It is translated and published by our own University of Chicago Press. The work highlights the relationship between both real and fictional people and their dogs. Perhaps, not surprisingly, Andre Gide takes the best in show trophy for the most neurotic dog.

Our death of animals theme turns now for a look at Ivan Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Notebook reviewed by Christian Tyler. This book paints a very touching landscape of the Orel province where Turgenev grew up. According to Tyler, this work helped to convince Alexander II to free the Russian serfs and that it was written when Turgenev was living 2,000 miles away out side of Paris.[20] I have recently purchased the work and have scanned various passages. It is on my short list of to be read books. Nevertheless, there are several significant factors in my life that draw me to this book. I was raised on a Minnesota farm and began shooting a BB gun at the age of six. I spent many hours sending god’s little creatures to their heavenly reward through my numerous expeditions around the farm buildings and into our extensive woods. Tyler was right about the difficulty of translating the joy of this experience to city dwellers who see it as rather pointless or cruel. My daughter, Emily, has never fathomed this side of my life. In addition, I attended a party at Turgenev’s private chateau west of Paris in June of 1997. He had built it in 1875 after being forced out of Russia by fellow intellectuals, including Dostoyevsky. In his home he founded Russian realism and entertained Zola, Maupassant, George Sand, Chopin, Schubert and Renan. Finally, I have done grant work in Russian history for the National Endowment for the Humanities and have dealt with Soviet diplomats in their embassy in Washington, D.C. I do have a deep appreciation for the historical and contemporaneous features of Russian culture.

The next reviewer, Colin Martin, touches more of my rural sensibilities in different ways than did Turgenev. He grew up in Australia and would go fishing for yabbies, a crayfish, with his country cousins. In one of the outings he cut his finger on a barbwire fence.[21] I share the similar life experience scar. Currently he lives in London and collects private press books that exceed his wife’s desired level of expenditure. The book that he is pursuing is written by Gaylord Schanilec and is entitled Mayflies of the Driftless Region. That book discussed the region surrounding our family farm outside of Red Wing, Minnesota. I remember the time in June when my parents decided to cross the Hiawatha Bridge over the Mississippi River. It was the night that the mayflies for that section of the river decided to mate. They were attracted by the lights of the bridge and created one foot of dead mayfly bodies on the bridge. The highway maintenance people needed to use a grader to remove all those dead bodies. Also the bridge became very slick. My parent’s car had the distinct aroma of rotting fish, and it was no pleasure to wash it. In his book Schanilec has done beautiful engravings of each of the 13 different species of mayflies and has collaborated with Professor Clarke Garry, an entomologist from the University of Wisconsin. Garry adds the scientific language to each of the engravings. I must say that life certainly has its most remarkable connections. I never thought that I would read a British publication that contained a story by an Aussie who was interested in a fine press book about mayflies from my home area of rural Minnesota.

The final Slightly Foxed reviewer topic that I would like to investigate tonight is another nature subject that is much closer to my heart than a smelly mayfly. It is the garden of sundry fragrances and colors. Both of my grandfathers had wild flower gardens that even included pink lady slippers and showy orchids that were very rare in Minnesota. My father spent a lot of time identifying wild plants. From these and other influences I have developed a deep appreciation for the beauty and serenity that fine gardens provide in one’s life. In July of 2002 our garden and deck were pictured and discussed in an article of the home and gardening section of the Chicago Tribune. However, some of the most spectacular gardens that I have ever seen have been located in England. It has the ideal plant climate. On our honeymoon my wife, Kathleen, and I stayed at Gravetye Manor, which is 20 minutes from Gatwick Airport. This place contains the original designs of William Robinson, father of the English natural garden. When one reaches the car park, there is one sign that says ‘please do not idle your engine because the flowers do not like fumes’. I felt that I had arrived in the closest approximation that we get to the Garden of Eden on earth.

Not surprising for a British publication, Slightly Foxed has had a number of reviews about books that deal with the subject of gardens. In the very first issue David Wheeler reviews The Emperor’s Last Island by Julia Blackburn about Napoleon’s last years on the remote island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic. Wheeler’s great-grandparents had been married on that island, and he had visited it briefly. Part of the book describes Napoleon’s attempt to establish a garden on the wild volcanic outcrys and how ultimately it failed.[22] He had hoped to recreate a modicum of the comfort he had experienced in France. His garden was very symbolic of his empire.

The second issue contains two delightful garden reviews. Annette Kobak gives an insightful look at the Czech writer Karel Capek, who wrote the Gardener’s Year in 1929 and had his brother do the cartoon illustrations. Each month’s garden activities are deftly described in a very humorous vane. The month of February is a “whippersnapper among months . . . this fickle, catarrhal, crafty runt of a month”.[23] The serious gardeners will find a lot to identify with in the prose and illustrations that show bodies doing a variety of planting contortions.

Ursula Buchan’s analysis of Charles Elliott’s The Potting Shed Papers is quite interesting for those who have a bent towards the history of gardens. Elliott is an American doing gardening Britain. Buchan does her own literary twist on Samuel Johnson when she says that “Britain and the United States are separated by a common horticulture just as much as by a common language”. For gardenphiliacs this work is a great bedtime reading in those long winter months that are dreamily looking forward to that return to the good earth. Elliott’s knowledge of Proust, Longfellow and Gerald Manley Hopkins is reflected in the substantive writing style of the text. Buchan summarizes her opinion by saying that “it is a life of rich pudding, which is best when savored slowly and reflectively”.[24] The book is filled with marvelous historical tidbits. One of my favorite anecdotes is about the frustrating plant collection experiences of two Frenchmen, Charles de la Condamine and Joseph de Jussieu in the 18^th century. Both men had located cinchona trees in the upper reaches of the Amazon. The bark was the source for quinine which treated malaria. Condamine had nursed young tree plants for an eight-month 2, 500 mile journey, only to have them washed overboard in the Atlantic. Jussieu spent 15 years in the South American forest, collecting important specimens and, in the end, they were all stolen from him. He went mad.[25] When you have a bad day, you might find solace in the lives of these two men.

Elliott’s description of Nicholas Longworth contains many intriguing stories. He was a successful 19^th century Cincinnati entrepreneur. He dressed in old, dirty clothes and pinned slips to them. When he finished the job, he tore off his slip. It was said that Abraham Lincoln visited Longworth’s famous garden and mistakenly thought the owner was a workman. Longworth accepted Lincoln’s dime tip by saying that this was really the only honest money that he ever made since he was, by profession, a lawyer.[26]

Tim Longville in his review “Seeds of Friendship” describes Elizabeth Lawrence’s Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins. Lawrence was close friends with the writer Eudora Welty, who inspired her to write about her wonderful garden located in the American south. The photograph in Longville’s article captures the inviting southern charm and hospitality as she is pictured at her garden gate.[27] My wife, Kathleen, and I experienced the meaning of the snapshot when we took a gates and garden tour of Savannah last spring.

Earlier in my paper I had mentioned Vita Sackville-West and her historical biography. Ursula Buchan has also written a review of Sackville-West’s In Your Garden. Sackville-West had an extraordinary aristocratic garden at Sissinghurst in Kent where she lived with her diplomatic, writer husband, Sir Harold Nicolson. In between the more decadent escapades of her life, she wrote garden articles for the Observer that, according to Buchan, still inspire us today.[28] I remember visiting those gardens and enjoying the encapsulated fragrance of the walled herb garden.

For my concluding remarks I want to say that it has been my pleasure to introduce you, the serious reading audience, to this magnificent real reader’s quarterly called Slightly Foxed. As I hope that I have clearly communicated to you that, unlike the fox’s opinion, the grapes in this periodical are not sour but instead have the sweet, robust flavor that will stimulate your literary taste buds for many years to come.

---

[1] Painter, George, Marcel Proust, Vol. 1, Chattox Winds: 1959, p. 88.

[2] Pirkus, Gail, Slightly Foxed, No. 1, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2004, pp. 5-6.

[3] Campbell-Johnston, Rachel, Slightly Foxed, No. 1, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2004, pp. 19-20.

[4] Pyrnne, J.H., Poems, Blood Axe Books: New Castle, 1999, p. 171.

[5] Boston, Anne, “Cutting it Fine”, Slightly Foxed, No. 1, Slightly Foxed Limited: 2004, p. 33.

[6] Op.cit., p. 34

[7] Op. cit, p. 84

[8] Op. cit, p. 82

[9] Wood, Hazel, “A Cab at the Door”, Slightly Foxed, No. 8, Slightly Foxed Limited: 2005, p. 51.

[10] Watson, Lyall, “The Museum of Jurassic Technology”, Slightly Foxed, No. 2, Slightly Foxed Limited: 2004, p. 34.

[11] Bankes, Ariane, “Sharks, Otters and Fast Cars”, Slightly Foxed, No. 3, Slightly Foxed Limited: 2004, p. 8.

[12] Campbell-Johnston, Rachel, “Mining Conrad”, Slightly Foxed, No. 3, Slightly Foxed Limited: 2004, pp. 26-27.

[13] Perry, Anthony, “A Tuft of a Masterpiece”, Slightly Foxed, No. 4, Slightly Foxed Limited: 2004, pp. 78-81.

[14] Connolly, Cyril, The Unquiet Grave, Persea Books: New York, 1981, p. 62.

[15] Rush, Christopher, “Orkney’s Prospero”, Slightly Foxed, No. 4, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2004, p. 32.

[16] Brown, George, Letters from Hamnavoe, Steve Savage Publishers: London, 2002, p. 9.

[17] Geras, Adele, “Drama in Suburbia”, Slightly Foxed, No. 5, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2005, p. 31.

[18] Flanagan, Mary, “On the Loose”, Slightly Foxed, No. 6, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2005, pp. 42.45.

[19] Pirkus, Gail, Slightly Foxed, No. 7, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2005, p. 5.

[20] Tyler, Christian, “Waist-high in Kale”, Slightly Foxed, No. 1, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2005, pp. 7-11.

[21] Martin, Colin, “Casting a Spell”, Slightly Foxed, No. 6, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2005, p. 53.

[22] Wheeler, David, “Napoleon’s Last Garden:, Slightly Foxed, No. 1, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2004, pp. 28-31.

[23] Kobak, Annette, “Mightier Than the Sword”, Slightly Foxed, No. 2, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2004, p. 22.

[24] Buchan, Ursula, “Well Dug In”, Slightly Foxed, No. 2, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2004, pp. 68-70.

[25] Elliott, Charles, The Potting-Shed Papers, Lyons Press: Guildod, Connecticut, 2002, pp. 62-63.

[26] Opt. cit., p. 43

[27] Longville, Tim, “Seeds of Friendship”, Slightly Foxed, No. 3, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2004, pp. 21-23.

[28] Buchan, Ursula, “Posh, But Down to Earth”, Slightly Foxed, No. 5, Slightly Foxed Limited: London, 2005, pp. 74-77.