Another day with Headlam letters including several where people share finding things hard and one where a young man considers something Demosthenes-related to be 'dreadful'

Today, I returned after a several-day break to the Barker Special Collections room. There always would have been a break - I was last there on Friday and the library doesn't open weekends. But I needed to drive down to Surrey for some house buying and selling-related things and spent much of Monday travelling back up to the North East.

Palace Green Library, home of the Barker Room, and a place which really does make everyone welcome just like the banner says

I'd missed the Barker Room. I already have a favourite place to sit and a favourite locker in which to put my bag and coat. But what particularly makes me feel at home are the letters. I've got to know the handwriting of the correspondents, for example - to date those writing to Isabella, and, above all, to Margaret, and I sigh each time I reach a letter from the correspondent who tends to write over their original text at right angles.

Clock I look up at from time to time from my favourite seat. The daydream windows look out over the Wear

What I read today continued to give me windows into what interested the letter writers and/or what they thought that their addressees would like to hear. And - again - what they share continues to be rarely classical-related. A heads-up though: I did read SOMEthing classical today.

[I've been writing 'today', but this is actually we writing several days after what I call 'today' - as what I'm doing is typing up what I wrote long-hand soon after leaving the library seated in a cafe between Palace Green and the train station and feeling in need of refreshment as lunchtime - which fell between reading the two letters from young men doing tutoring - was taken up attending a seminar at the Centre for Nineteenth-Century studies after which I returned to the library for a final hour or so as the Barker room was closing early that day. I hope to share some things about that seminar - but that will need to wait...]

This is not at all classics related - I'm sharing it because it's something that's struck me. Some of the correspondents - all writing to Margaret - shared quite specific details about various ailments. These include her brother [must check who it can have been? Morley who died in 1884?], who on May 5th 1883 wrote at length about what he was suffering, including by sharing that his 'skin is peeling off all over ' and that he has 'a good deal of irritation and am necessarily [not sure if that's the word, but it's my best guess] very weak and rather [word I can't decipher]...'

Another letter, from Ellen Browning Hall (I don't know who Ellen is...),  meanwhile, sent the following year, details how 'Death has been busy' among those she knows, including with a man who had seemed in good health and had been married for only around a year when he died. Then, horribly, Ellen writes, 'his sweet pretty young wife received a letter from him written on the anniversary of their wedding day which only arrived after his death when she was a widow with his newly born son who was fatherless'.

This was far from the first time I'd read letters which included details about illness and suffering. There was that 1841 letter from Francis John to Isabella from Eton for instance - a letter I read on an earlier day spent with the collection - where he gave her updates on his (I think, from memory) blisters. There was also a very moving letter I read yesterday which I didn't write about in that day's blog posting because I wasn't sure how to do justice to it from a woman sharing with Margaret just grief-stricken she is after the recent death of her young daughter. Maybe this was even Ellen - I'll go back and check.

But I'll turn now to what I found that was more relevant my project - namely the letters from young Headlam men who are employed as tutors.

One was from Cuthbert Headlam dated August 30th 1894 when he will have been around 18 - so will have left school. He is writing from Barons Court in Ireland, which he considers 'huge, but extremely ugly' and he writes too about the grounds and the wider environs before turning to its inhabitants, including the one of the most interest to me, namely the boy he is tutoring. He tells his aunt that he doesn't think much about the boy's academic prowess: '[t]he boy is perfectly hopeless about work', he writes. 

As he continues, though, there is both a minus and a plus to this. One the one hand, 'the two hours of lessons [the word 'work' has been crossed out and 'lessons' substituted] are rather a bore, but, on the other, 'I must be thankful we haven't to do more'.

The letter from the other Headlam young man, the one in France, also gave a glimpse into what life was like for him and what he made of his role. 

This letter, to 'My dear Aunt Mar', is not dated, and it was only during the latter that I realised that it was from Lionel (aha - the 'Lion' of the letter I had read previously!). This was thanks to a detail he includes about what he considers a tediously elaborate good-night ritual in the house: 'Going to bed is a serious matter', he writes, continuing. 'You go to the door & say 'Bon Soir' & then there is a chorus of Bon soir, M. Lionel all over, it is really an ordeal.'

Before sharing how he is not enjoying this aspect of his life with the family in France, he has already shared that he is not comfortable with his current task either, namely letter writing. 'It is such a serious matter writing down to write a letter now that I can hardly do it', he begins - this is all quite meta. For,  he continues, '[s]urely one who reads it looks at something, writing, grammar etc, but as I not I could not [that's what he writes, not me garbling it] satisfy all, I will make no one jealous & satisfy none. 

After this glimpse into what Lionel feels as he begins to write, the letter takes a more conventional turn. 'Thank you very much for your book...' he says before sharing information about his life in France and news about the family, As with Cuthbert's letter, there are no details about what he is teaching his tutee - so no classical references are shared - nor indeed are there references to any academic subject. Rather, it's when he gets to news about his own family that the classical stuff comes in. Here, for someone who isn't comfortable with writing letters, or at least who wasn't feeling comfortable with the activity when he stared writing to his aunt, he manages an elaborated image of county the learning journey his brother Jimmy is on:

I have heard from Papa, they seem to be doing Rome well; I wonder if Jimmy will go to tutorage at Constantinople, he will soon be a dreadful specimen, half German & half Turk on a ground work of English, rather like a Naples cake, alternate layers with Brandy (ie English) poured over it all. [note to myself - I must see if there's a way to work out how old Jimmy might have been].

Next comes the classical reference. Referring - I assume - to how his mother is taking a hands-on role in her son's education, he shares that:

It is dreadful to hear Mamma talk of Demosthenes etc as if she had known them all her life

On first reading this comment, I thought that Lionel might be referring to how frustrating it can be when someone new to a subject acts as though it has long been part of their life. If so this resonates - it does my head in. But if so, there looks to be more going on too - for Lionel goes on to convey a sense of distance from his own past, as he does at the start - when he shares how uncomfortable he now finds writing letters. For, he says:

I used to know more than her in that subject, but now...

The three dots are Lionel's.

This, then, is the reason why it was 'dreadful' to have someone 'talk of Demosthenes etc'.

Here then are the key things I found on my first day in the library on week 2.

Drinks, bags etc go in lockers like no. 12 which I've used each time so far

I'll end, now, with some things I ought to try to follow up on:

1. See if I can find out who the 'etc' are likely to be: other orators? Other Great Men of ancient Greece and/or Rome?
2. See, too, if I can find out why Demosthenes is singled out, and what this might say about the work the name of this orator might be doing in the 19th century.
3. Find out which speeches of Demosthenes might have been part of his brother's eduction.
4. Look into what speeches of Demosthenes will have been used for in this education: for language study perhaps? for the study of rhetoric?
5. Consider whether it is the fact that it's Lionel's mother who now 'knows' Demosthenes that has got under his skin. Whether this was the case or not is not - I guess - knowable unless I luck on some other bit of evidence - from his mother for instance, or from a diary of Lionel (I don't know if there will be one in the Collections; it would be wonderful if there was anything like this...).But even if - as is probably the case, this is not knowable, I can still try to find out about how far women of the gentry such as Lionel's mother would generally 'know' classical authors.

That's where I got to - in writing up an eventful day where I didn't really get all that long in the library what with the lunchtime seminar and the early closure. But still: what I did read included some useful stuff. I'll write up I found the next day asap.