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On “Context”

A mantra I see repeated by many interpreters of the Bible is “context, context, context.” While it’s true that a proper context is crucial to exegesis, the interpreters who shout this mantra the loudest are usually the ones doing it completely wrong. First, what “context” actually means is often overlooked. To the lay interpreter, context often just means the interpretive lens provided by the harmonization of a text or a larger literary collection. When used this way, the appeal to “context” is often a pretense for the application of a hermeneutic slight of hand. Whether the text in question involves the Old Testament or the New, texts from different authors, different time periods, and vastly different worldviews are often appealed to in an attempt to impose  an interpretive framework specifically designed to preclude or support a given reading.

This framework is disguised as the text’s “context,” even though it is often an entirely artificial lens derived from notions that “scripture interprets scripture,” or that the “overall” or “central” message must govern exegesis of any given verse. This is specious for more reasons than one (begs the question, presupposes univocality, etc.), but most egregiously, it rests on the notion that the parts of a text should be understood in light of its whole. An example of this kind of claim I have used before is the notion actually asserted in a conversation I had that “you have to look at the picture on the box to see how the pieces fit together.” In other words, you have to know what the texts mean overall before you can understand what an individual verse means. Brilliant. Since the whole is made up of the sum of the parts, the former should not overrule the latter, especially if the parts constitute independently produced literary units, as is the case with collections like the Old Testament or the New. When the whole unilaterally dictates the interpretation of the parts, you’re spiral down into the black hole of the hermeneutic circle.

Certainly fundamental patterns that reoccur within a single author or single genre’s text/s merit serious consideration when it comes to interpreting an anomalous-looking portion, but the offenders to whom I refer rarely maintain that kind of methodological discipline. Usually their “context” is much more broadly based and seems to align conveniently with conservative dogmas, like sola gratia or strict monotheism. When a text that conflicts with these principles is brought up, the “central message of the Old/New Testament” is asserted as overruling or contextualizing the text to the degree that it no longer says what it seems to say, even if it means asserting that the true meaning of the text can only be found between the lines, and can only be illuminating by the imposition of the (artificial) “context” provided by the collection as a whole.

As an example, in a recent discussion on a message board a poster was vehemently arguing that John’s soteriology was not “works-based” because John only requires that an individual believe in order to be saved, and believing is not a “work.” John 6:28–29 was brought up:

They said to him, “What should we do, that we might work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Now, what a “work” is vis-à-vis a “works-based” soteriology is debatable, and this verse doesn’t necessarily put the kibosh on the argument that believing isn’t a work, but the response to this appeal was that John’s soteriology, and that of the New Testament as a whole, is not “works-based,” and so this verse must mean something else. The poster insisted that this must be sarcasm on Jesus’ part, meant to poke at the Jews’ preoccupation with the works of the law. In other words, he only used the word “work” sarcastically since it was the word the works-centered Jews used in their question. The poster stated that although he could not prove it, he thinks that Jesus winked at his disciples when he said this.

In making this argument the poster not only begs the question, but presupposes a univocal soteriology in the New Testament from beginning to end, and aligns that soteriology with modern notions of sola gratia. In doing so the poster must reject the straightforward meaning of all texts that conflict with those assumptions as sarcasm, irony, or some other rhetorical tool that leaves the actual meaning of the comments in between the lines. It takes the imposition of a “context” derived from the univocal reading of a secondary gathering of texts composed independently of each other to draw out the true meaning of the text. This is not what context means, though; this is a hermeneutic puppet show. To properly understand context one must be willing to avoid the presumption of univocality and be willing to look at literature outside of the Bible itself. After all, the texts of the New Testament had to operate for decades within their own literary contexts before they were ever brought together into a collection.

4 responses to “On “Context”

  • epatt72

    Is it not possible that the Gospels are simply a narrative, and that we are over analyzing this? After all, these were unlearned and ignorant men (Acts 4:13) at least in the eyes of others. Over analysis of the text can lead one to misinterpret, regardless of whether that analysis is exegetical or through the lens of traditional dogmata.

  • diglot

    You are right… the univocality of the Bible is a huge presupposition at those forums.

    Interacting with those types of people, while being time-wasting, is actually kind of addictive. I imagine it must get frustrating, though, considering you apparently can not question their presuppositions without getting banned.

  • Gavriel

    The last line: After all, the texts of the New Testament had to operate for decades within their own literary contexts before they were ever brought together into a collection.

    Hits the nail on the head. People forget especially in times of the “Old Testament” there were HUNDREDS of years between some of the books and all the “New Testament” if you go by traditional dating. There was extended periods of times that the books up to that point in history would have been all of Scripture. So using later works is absurd in the name of context.

    The furthest I ever use the “context” card is with the same author, that is it.

  • Jon Ericson

    I ran across this post researching a question (http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q/219/68) on hermeneutics.stackexchange.com. You (and your readers) might enjoy the site, which beginning to gel into a really interesting community of Bible enthusiasts. We could really use more experts over there.😉

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Rivers Announces Celtics “Don’t Need a Point Guard,” Declares Himself “Un-retired”

In a surprise press conference today, a pretend-version of Doc Rivers explained to the astonished assembled media:

“I’m tired of all this talk about how we need a point guard.  Haven’t any of you taken a look at my career numbers?  You don’t think I have anything left?  You don’t think I’ve been waiting for this moment since we traded for Garnett?”

Pretend-Doc continued, “Now, look, I know our team is old, and I know we’ll miss Rajon’s abilities with the ball, but SERIOUSLY!  haven’t you seen any of our practices?  I still have a little something left. Just don’t ask me to get out in transition.  I still limp from that torn ACL I suffered back in…I forget when…give me a break….I’m 51.  It doesn’t matter.  Anyway, I can’t lead the break, but in the half-court…I know my way around.  .  I can play the pick-and-roll game.  Don’t you remember me teaming up with Dominique?  You forget about my season in New York with Ewing?  I averaged almost 11 points, 6 assists and 2 steals in my fourteen year career!  Doesn’t that count for anything?”

The press room had never heard such silence, while Rivers drank from his water bottle.

“You know what, you guys go on speculating about a Pierce trade, a KG trade, some other trade-machine mess!  I know that I can run this team.  We’re not going to go sign Delonte West when I can suit up and play for the minimum.  I can keep us under the cap, keep our team together for the future, and maybe even win us a game or two all by myself before the playoffs come.”

Asked for a response, pretend Paul Pierce looked at the floor and sighed.  “Listen…Doc’s our coach…We’ve gotta believe in him…if he thinks he has something left….well, we’ve gotta…well, I don’t know.  I’m not going to tell you he doesn’t still have the fire.”  Pierce gazed off into the middle distance and a tear rolled down his cheek.

Pretend Kevin Garnett, lingering in the corner of the locker room, responded, “I can’t wait to get out there on the court with Doc!  He’s about to prove all you reporters wrong!  He’s going to mess up some of these rookie point guards.  He controls the tempo, man!”

“We’re not a run-and-gun team nowadays.  You all know that.  We can call an extra time-out or two if needed.  Doc is like a player-coach, anyway.  This way, he doesn’t need to yell at Sully and Bass from the bench, he can do it from the top of the key when they’re out of position!”

Pretend Courtney Lee and pretend Jason Terry, two of the likely playing-time beneficiaries of Rondo’s absence, were unavailable for comment.

Pretend Austin Rivers, Doc’s son and current NBA rookie on the New Orleans Hornets, was reached by phone for comment.  Austin explained, “I know it might be a shock to some, but since we (the Hornets) beat them (the Celtics), my dad keeps telling me, ‘It ain’t over, yet.  Don’t think you’ve got a leg up on me, yet, son.’  I knew my dad was just driven enough, just crazy enough, to get back out there.  When I heard Rondo went down, I thought to myself, ‘I bet he does it.  I bet he gives himself two weeks to get into better shape, and then decides he’s gonna give it one more shot.’

When asked if he thought his dad was putting his health at risk by re-entering the NBA at age 51, Austin stared off into the abyss, speaking quietly.  “My dad’s gonna do what he’s gonna do.  I don’t think he’ll be up in the air enough to land awkwardly or anything like that.  Still, I hope he subs himself out when he’s pushing it too much.”

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Reflection on the Anniversary of Archbishop Romero’s Martyrdom

Dear Friends,

Today marks the 29th anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero. It is interesting to note that on February 17, 1980, Romero wrote to President Jimmy Carter making the following appeal: “Prohibit all U.S. military assistance to the Salvadoran government. Guarantee that the US government will not intervene, directly or indirectly, by military, economic, diplomatic, or other pressures, to influence the direction of the destiny of the Salvadoran people.” A little over a month later Romero was shot and killed by an assassin while he celebrated the Eucharist. In 1993, the UN Truth Commission Report established that Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, a graduate of the School of the Americas (Assassins), ordered Romero’s assassination. (more…)

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Happy New Year!

More great news to share with the Deep Plate community.  Bauscher USA, Inc. will be the distribution partner for Luigi Bormioli effective February 1st.

With five brands under the Bauscher USA, Inc. portfolio, we can now address the three important elements to your tabletop: porcelain, cutlery and holloware, and beverage service.

At some point, hopefully sooner than later, we will bring different articles from the new brands to Deep Plate.  Between now and then, we will busy.  Trust me.

This month, we’re going to keep it simple and clean.  From Bonn Plus, the 7” square coupe plate.  Simple and clean.  Let’s see what simple, clean food you can put up this month.

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Posts Tagged ‘indian navy future warships’

The Indian naval designers have been working on cutting edge ships of the future. CNN-IBN caught up with naval experts at the President’s Fleet Review to find out what the Indian navy fleet will look like, 10 years from now. The Indian Navy will have a three hulled ship or the Trimaran virtually invisible to the enemy radar because of its stealth design. Its deck gun and missiles have been concealed in every respect.

KN Vaidyanathan, DG, Naval Design, said, “Stealth means reduced radar cross section, reduced underwater noise as well as reduced infrared signature apart from other electric signatures.”

“We are also going to use multi-function radars, already our destroyers and new gen frigates are going to have multi-function radars and they are using the vertical launch systems,” he added.

The Trimaran concept design follows in the wake of the Navy’s first stealth design, the Project 17 Shivalik class ships, two of which are now at sea with a third on the way.

But the Navy is banking on the Shivalik’s successor, the Project 17 Alfa stealth vessel, which will have missile silos flush with the deck and torpedo launchers blending along the sides of the vessel. There will also be a concealed hangar for a Kamov helicopter. Naval designers admit that US concepts have influenced some of their ideas.

“If you look at the LCS design of the US Navy, they are moving on the seaframe concept and mission modularity.The idea is to have a basic seaframe for the platform and have a mission module so that you can have role changes for the ship and there can be a quick turnaround of roles,” Vaidyanathan said.

With an eye on the future, the Navy is moving towards modular construction and may even participate in Britain’s Global Combat Ship project where individual navies can use a common low cost platform to fit their own weapons and systems.


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Catherine  Demko, PhD

Catherine Demko, PhD

Associate Professor Department of Community Dentistry 216.368.8804 (o)

MS, Genetics, The Ohio State University
PhD, Epidemiology, Case Western Reserve University
Postdoctoral Training, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center

Research Interests

oral cancer screening, health promotion in dental practice, practice change and quality improvement in practice-based research networks

Demko CA, Victoroff KZ, Wotman S. Concordance of chart and billing data with direct observation in dental practice. In press, Comm Dent Oral Epidem, 2008.

Williams K, Demko CA, Lalumnadier J, Wotman S. Caring for African American Patients in Private Practice: Disparities and Similarities in Dental Procedures and Communication,” In press: JADA, Sept. 2008

Demko CA, Sawyer DR, Slivka M, Smith D, Wotman S. Prevalence of Oral Lesions Presenting in the Dental Office. Accepted. General Dentistry.

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mbed FRDM KL25Z Getting Started

This guide takes you through mbed-enabling your FRDM-KL25Z board, and getting started with the mbed online tools platform. An mbed-enabled Freedom-KL25Z board gives you:

  • USB drag and drop programming
  • USB Virtual COM port for serial terminal
  • CMSIS-DAP interface for programming and debugging from offline tools
  • Free access to the mbed online compiler, mbed C/C++ SDK, and developer community

Its really simple to get setup, and its free, so lets get started!

A new interface firmware image is necessary to mbed-enable Freescale FRDM boards

Getting Started with mbed

1. Connect your mbed-enabled FRDM-KL25Z to a PC

Use the USB lead to connect your KL25Z to a PC, using the USB connector labelled "SDA". The status light will come on, indicating it has power. After a few seconds of activity, the PC will recognise the mbed Microcontroller as a standard USB drive.

Windows XP exampleMac OS X example

Go to the new USB Drive, and click MBED.HTM to open it in a web browser.

If you do not have an mbed account, choose "Signup", and create your mbed Account. Otherwise, log in with your normal username and password.

This will give you access to the website, tools, libraries and documentation.

3. Have Fun!

Where Next?

If the USB Flash drive does not appear:

  • Ensure the USB connector is plugged in fully. The Microcontroller can power up even when only partially connected, but it won't actually work!
  • Warning; in newer versions of windows, loading the mass-storage disk driver for the first time can take a long time...
  • Windows tends to be lazy, so you'll often have to hit F5 when you're in an explorer window to see new drives.

If any of this doesn't work as described for you, please email support@mbed.co.uk


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The Discmania S-Line P1 Maniac is a straight ideal putter and it works great as an approach disc. The P1 flight characteristic is very straight at high and low speeds. It is very soft and rubbery. This is a true disc golf put…

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The Innova DX Dragon is a beginner friendly lightweight fairway driver golf disc that is straight. It has excellent glide for less powerful throwers who want to get more distance with less effort. Made of a special DX plastic…

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Legacy Nemesis - Icon

The Legacy Icon Nemesis is an understable distance driver.  Beginning players will love the ease of throwing it. The Icon Nemesis has a maximum amount of glide with a slight high speed turn and strong fin…

Legacy Phenom - Icon

The Legacy Icon Phenom is an understable fairway driver. This driver has a lot of glide. The Icon Phenom has a slight turn in the beginning of its flight and more fade at the end causing it to have pinpoint accur…


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NBC, ESPN, HBO Win 5 Sports Emmys- 5/3/2005

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District of Idaho Civil Rights Cases

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as 2:2005cv00084
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'Search by location' feature developed

Posted by duvien on 30th Jun 2008

I was contacted by a web agency over the weekend to help add a 'search by location' feature to one of the client's website (CLS Group). The function of it was to show the location and area where their homes were located and provide information about the homes.

This was simply achieve using CCK and views modules, and the cool hierarchical select module. hierarchical select uses Jquery for a sliding effect to show multiple select group. You can see a working example at clsgroup website. The site runs on Drupal 5.

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Over a million developers have joined DZone.

QF-Test version 3.5.3 released - roadmap for 4.0

Most notable features added in the 3.5 branch are the concept of grouping and managing test-suites in projects, Daemon communication now secured via SSL, new support for AJAX toolkits ICEfaces (added in 3.5.3!), Vaadin, PrimeFaces and ZK, full sub-item support for several AJAX toolkits, integration with test management tool QMetry, updated support for Firefox up to current 25, updated support up to Eclipse versions 4.3 and 3.8.2,  ExtJS version 4 and RichFaces version 4, for Testlink 1.9.7 and several extensions to the standard library qfs.qft.

Development also revealed that the focus is now going to switch to the next QF-Test major version 4. The primary goals for QF-Test 4 are support for JavaFX as a new GUI engine and for Chrome as part of the Web engine.

QF-Test already features easy to use capture/replay for effective recording of test cases for Java- (Swing, SWT, Eclipse plug-ins and RCP, ULC, Web Start, applets) and web-based applications (HTML, AJAX, explicitly GWT, RAP, Qooxdoo, Richfaces, ExtJs, ExtGwt, Vaadin, ZK, Primefaces and now ICEfaces). Advanced options like structuring and modularization strongly increase the reusability of system tests and thus reduce the maintenance effort. Expert functions like scripting in Jython or Groovy allow powerful under-the-surface access. QF-Test is ideal for the automation of functional regression and load testing.

More details and the latest version are available for download, also a free evaluation license.

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The Bride of Abydos, by George Byron

Introduction to the The Bride of Abydos.

Many poets — Wordsworth, for instance — have been conscious in their old age that an interest attaches to the circumstances of the composition of their poems, and have furnished their friends and admirers with explanatory notes. Byron recorded the motif and occasion of the Bride of Abydos while the poem was still in the press. It was written, he says, to divert his mind, “to wring his thoughts from reality to imagination — from selfish regrets to vivid recollections” (Diary, December 5, 1813, Letters, ii. 361), “to distract his dreams from . . . ” (Diary, November 16) “for the sake of employment” (Letter to Moore, November 30, 1813). He had been staying during part of October and November at Aston Hall, Rotherham, with his friend James Wedderburn Webster, and had fallen in love with his friend’s wife, Lady Frances. From a brief note to his sister, dated November 5, we learn that he was in a scrape, but in “no immediate peril,” and from the lines, “Remember him, whom Passion’s power” (vide ante, p. 67), we may infer that he had sought safety in flight. The Bride of Abydos, or Zuleika, as it was first entitled, was written early in November, “in four nights” (Diary, November 16), or in a week (Letter to Gifford, November 12) — the reckoning goes for little — as a counter-irritant to the pain and distress of amour interrompu.

The confession or apology is eminently characteristic. Whilst the Giaour was still in process of evolution, still “lengthening its rattles,” another Turkish poem is offered to the public, and the natural explanation, that the author is in vein, and can score another trick, is felt to be inadequate and dishonouring — “To withdraw myself from myself,” he confides to his Diary(November 27), “has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive for scribbling at all.”

It is more than probable that in his twenty-sixth year Byron had not attained to perfect self-knowledge, but there is no reason to question his sincerity. That Byron loved to surround himself with mystery, and to dissociate himself from “the general,” is true enough; but it does not follow that at all times and under all circumstances he was insincere. “Once a poseur always a poseur” is a rough-and-ready formula not invariably applicable even to a poet.

But the Bride of Abydos was a tonic as well as a styptic. Like the Giaour, it embodied a personal experience, and recalled “a country replete with the darkest and brightest, but always the most lively colours of my memory” (Diary, December 5, 1813).

In a letter to Galt (December 11, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 304, reprinted from Life of Byron, pp. 181, 182) Byron maintains that the first part of the Bride was drawn from “observations” of his own, “from existence.” He had, it would appear, intended to make the story turn on the guilty love of a brother for a sister, a tragic incident of life in a Harem, which had come under his notice during his travels in the East, but “on second thoughts” had reflected that he lived “two centuries at least too late for the subject,” and that not even the authority of the “finest works of the Greeks,” or of Schiller (in the Bride of Messina), or of Alfieri (in Mirra), “in modern times,” would sanction the intrusion of the μισητὸν [misêto\n] into English literature. The early drafts and variants of the MS. do not afford any evidence of this alteration of the plot which, as Byron thought, was detrimental to the poem as a work of art, but the undoubted fact that the Bride of Abydos, as well as the Giaour, embody recollections of actual scenes and incidents which had burnt themselves into the memory of an eye-witness, accounts not only for the fervent heat at which these Turkish tales were written, but for the extraordinary glamour which they threw over contemporary readers, to whom the local colouring was new and attractive, and who were not out of conceit with “good Monsieur Melancholy.”

Byron was less dissatisfied with his second Turkish tale than he had been with the Giaour. He apologizes for the rapidity with which it had been composed — stans pede in uno — but he announced to Murray (November 20) that “he was doing his best to beat the Giaour,” and (November 29) he appraises the Bride as “my first entire composition of any length.”

Moreover, he records (November 15), with evident gratification, the approval of his friend Hodgson, “a very sincere and by no means (at times) a flattering critic of mine,” and modestly accepts the praise of such masters of letters as “Mr. Canning,” Hookham Frere, Heber, Lord Holland, and of the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke.

The Bride of Abydos was advertised in the Morning Chronicle, among “Books published this day,” on November 29, 1813. It was reviewed by George Agar Ellis in the Quarterly Review of January, 1814 (vol. x. p. 331), and, together with the Corsair, by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review of April, 1814 (vol. xxiii. p. 198).

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:51


text:
The Other House, by Henry James

PAUL BEEVER was tall and fat, and his eyes, like his mother’s, were very small; but more even than to his mother nature had offered him a compensation for this defect in the extension of the rest of the face. He had large, bare, beardless cheeks and a wide, clean, candid mouth, which the length of the smooth upper lip caused to look as exposed as a bald head. He had a deep fold of flesh round his uncovered young neck, and his white flannels showed his legs to be all the way down of the same thickness. He promised to become massive early in life and even to attain a remarkable girth. His great tastes were for cigarettes and silence; but he was, in spite of his proportions, neither gross nor lazy. If he was indifferent to his figure he was equally so to his food, and he played cricket with his young towns men and danced hard with their wives and sisters. Wilverley liked him and Tony Bream thought well of him: it was only his mother who had not yet made up her mind. He had done a good deal at Oxford in not doing any harm, and he had subse quently rolled round the globe in the very groove with which she had belted it. But it was exactly in satisfying that he a little disappointed her: she had provided so against dangers that she found it a trifle dull to be so completely safe. It had become with her a question not of how clever he was, but of how stupid. Tony had expressed the view that he was distinctly deep, but that might only have been, in Tony’s florid way, to show that he himself was so. She would not have found it convenient to have to give the boy an account of Mr. Vidal; but now that, detached from her purposes and respect ful of her privacies, he sat there without making an inquiry, she was disconcerted enough slightly to miss the opportunity to snub him. On this occa sion, however, she could steady herself with the possibility that her hour would still come. He began to eat a bun his row justified that; and meanwhile she helped him to his tea. As she handed him the cup she challenged him with some sharpness. “ Pray, when are you going to give it? ”

He slowly masticated while he looked at her. “When do you think I had better? ”

“Before dinner distinctly. One doesn’t know what may happen.”

“Do you think anything at all will?” he placidly asked.

His mother waited before answering. “ Nothing, certainly, unless you take some trouble for it.” His perception of what she meant by this was clearly wanting, so that after a moment she con tinued: “ You don’t seem to grasp that I’ve done for you all I can do, and that the rest now depends on yourself.”

“Oh yes, mother, I grasp it,” he said without irritation. He took another bite of his bun and then added: “ Miss Armiger has made me quite do that.”

“Miss Armiger?” Mrs. Beever stared; she even felt that her opportunity was at hand. “ What in the world has she to do with the matter? ”

“Why I’ve talked to her a lot about it.”

“You mean she has talked to you a lot, I suppose. It’s immensely like her.”

“It’s like my dear mamma that’s whom it’s like,” said Paul. “ She takes just the same view as yourself. I mean the view that I’ve a great opening and that I must make a great effort.”

“And don’t you see that for yourself? Do you require a pair of women to tell you?” Mrs. Beever asked.

Paul, looking grave and impartial, turned her question over while he stirred the tea. “No, not exactly. But Miss Armiger puts everything so well.”

“She puts some things doubtless beautifully. Still, I should like you to be conscious of some better reason for making yourself acceptable to Jean than that another young woman, however brilliant, recommends it.”

The young man continued to ruminate, and it occurred to his mother, as it had occurred before, that his imperturbability was perhaps a strength. “I am,” he said at last. “ She seems to make clear to me what I feel.”

Mrs. Beever wondered. “You mean of course Jean does.”

“Dear no Miss Armiger! ”

The lady of Eastmead laughed out in her impatience. “ I’m delighted to hear you feel any thing. You haven’t often seemed to me to feel.”

“I feel that Jean’s very charming.”

She laughed again at the way he made it sound. “Is that the tone in which you think of telling her so?”

“I think she’ll take it from me in any tone,” Paul replied. “ She has always been most kind to me; we’re very good friends, and she knows what I want.”

“It’s more than I do, my dear! That’s exactly what you said to me six months ago when she liked you so much that she asked you to let her alone,”

“She asked me to give her six months for a definite answer, and she likes me the more for having consented to do that,” said Paul. “The time I’ve waited has improved our relations.”

“Well, then, they now must have reached per fection. You’ll get her definite answer, therefore, this very afternoon.”

“When I present the ornament? ”

“When you present the ornament. You’ve got it safe, I hope? ”

Paul hesitated; he took another bun; “ I imagine it’s all right.”

“Do you only ‘imagine’ with a thing Of that value? What have you done with it? ”

Again the young man faltered. “ I’ve given it to Miss Armiger. She was afraid I’d lose it.”

“And you were not afraid she would?” his mother cried.

“Not a bit. She’s to give it back to me on this spot. She wants me too much to succeed.”

Mrs. Beever was silent a little. “And how much do you want her to? ”

Paul looked blank. “ In what? ”

“In making a fool of you.” Mrs. Beever gathered herself. “Are you in love with Rose Armiger, Paul? ”

He judiciously weighed the question. “Not in the least. I talk with her of nobody and nothing but Jean.”

“And do you talk with Jean of nobody and nothing but Rose? ”

Paul appeared to make an effort to remember. “I scarcely talk with her at all. We’re such old friends that there’s almost nothing to say.”

“There’s this to say, my dear that you take too much for granted I ”

“That’s just what Miss Armiger tells me. Give me, please, some more tea.” His mother took his cup, but she look at him hard and searchingly. He bore it without meeting her eyes, only turning his own pensively to the different dainties on the table. “If I do take a great deal for granted,” he went on, “you must remember that you brought me up to it.”

Mrs. Beever found only after an instant a reply; then, however, she uttered it with an air of triumph. “ I may have brought you up but I didn’t bring up Jean! ”

“Well, it’s not of her I’m speaking,” the young man good-humouredly rejoined; “though I might remind you that she has been here again and again, and month after month, and has always been taught so far as you could teach her to regard me as her inevitable fate. Have you any real doubt,” he went on, “ of her recognising in a satisfactory way that the time has come? ”

Mrs. Beever transferred her scrutiny to the interior of her teapot. “ No!” she said after a moment.

“Then what’s the matter? ”

“The matter is that I’m nervous, and that your stolidity makes me so. I want you to behave to me as if you cared and I want you still more to behave so to her.” Paul made, in his seat, a movement in which his companion caught, as she supposed, the betrayal of a sense of oppression; and at this her own worst fear broke out. “Oh, don’t tell. me you dorit care for if you do I don’t know what I shall do to you!” He looked at her with an air he some times had, which always aggravated her impatience, an air of amused surprise, quickened to curiosity, that there should be in the world organisms capable of generating heat. She had thanked God, through life, that she was cold-blooded, but now it seemed to face her as a Nemesis that she was a volcano compared with her son. This transferred to him the advantage she had so long monopolised, that of always seeing, in any relation or discussion, the other party become the spectacle, while, sitting back in her stall, she remained the spectator and even the critic. She hated to perform to Paul as she had made others perform to herself; but she determined on the instant that, since she was condemned to do so, she would do it to some purpose. She would have to leap through a hoop, but she would land on her charger’s back. The next moment Paul was watching her while she shook her little flags at him. “There’s one thing, my dear, that I can give you my word of honour for the fact that if the influence that congeals, that paralyses you, happens by any chance to be a dream of what may be open to you in any other quarter, the sooner you utterly dismiss that dream the better it will be not only for your happiness, but for your dignity. If you entertain with no matter how bad a conscience a vain fancy that you’ve the smallest real chance of making the smallest real impression on anybody else, all I can say is that you prepare for yourself very nearly as much discomfort as you prepare disgust for your mother.” She paused a moment; she felt, before her son’s mild gape, like a trapezist in pink tights. “How much susceptibility, I should like to know, has Miss Armiger at her command for your great charms?”

Paul showed her a certain respect; he didn’t clap her that is he didn’t smile. He felt something, however, which was indicated, as it always was, by the way his eyes grew smaller: they contracted at times, in his big, fair face, to mere little conscious points. These points he now directed to the region of the house. “Well, mother,” he quietly replied, “if you would like to know it, hadn’t you better ask her directly?” Rose Armiger had come into view; Mrs. Beever, turning, saw her approach, bare headed, in a fresh white dress, under a showy red parasol. Paul, as she drew near, left his seat and strolled to the hammock, into which he immediately dropped. Extended there, while the great net bulged and its attachments cracked with his weight, he spoke with the same plain patience. “ She has come to give me up the ornament.”

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:56


text:
Charles Lamb, 1775–1834

Biographical note

Essayist and poet, was born in London, his father being confidential clerk to Samuel Salt, one of the benchers of the Inner Temple. After being at a school in the neighbourhood, he was sent by the influence of Mr. Salt to Christ’s Hospital, where he remained from 1782–89, and where he formed a lifelong friendship with Coleridge. He was then for a year or two in the South Sea House, where his elder brother John was a clerk. Thence he was in 1792 transferred to the India House, where he remained until 1825, when he retired with a pension of two-thirds of his salary. Mr. Salt died in 1792, and the family, consisting of the father, mother, Charles, and his sister Mary, ten years his senior, lived together in somewhat straitened circumstances. John, comparatively well off, leaving them pretty much to their own resources.

In 1796 the tragedy of Lamb’s life occurred. His sister Mary, in a sudden fit of insanity, killed her mother with a table-knife. Thenceforward, giving up a marriage to which he was looking forward, he devoted himself to the care of his unfortunate sister, who became, except when separated from him by periods of aberration, his lifelong and affectionate companion — the “Cousin Bridget” of his essays. His first literary appearance was a contribution of four sonnets to Coleridge’s Poems on Various Subjects (1796). Two years later he published, along with his friend Charles Lloyd, Blank Verse, the little vol. including The Old Familiar Faces, and others of his best known poems, and his romance, Rosamund Gray, followed in the same year. He then turned to the drama, and produced John Woodvil, a tragedy, and Mr. H., a farce, both failures, for although the first had some echo of the Elizabethan music, it had no dramatic force. Meantime the brother and sister were leading a life clouded by poverty and by the anxieties arising from the condition of the latter, and they moved about from one lodging to another.

Lamb’s literary ventures so far had not yielded much either in money or fame, but in 1807 he was asked by W. Godwin to assist him in his “Juvenile Library,” and to this he, with the assistance of his sister, contributed the now famous Tales from Shakespeare, Charles doing the tragedies and Mary the comedies. In 1808 they wrote, again for children, The Adventures of Ulysses, a version of the Odyssey, Mrs. Leicester’s School, and Poetry for Children (1809). About the same time he was commissioned by Longman to edit selections from the Elizabethan dramatists. To the selections were added criticisms, which at once brought him the reputation of being one of the most subtle and penetrating critics who had ever touched the subject. Three years later his extraordinary power in this department was farther exhibited in a series of papers on Hogarth and Shakespeare, which appeared in Hunt’s Reflector. In 1818 his scattered contributions in prose and verse were collected as The Works of Charles Lamb, and the favour with which they were received led to his being asked to contribute to the London Magazine the essays on which his fame chiefly rests. The name “Elia” under which they were written was that of a fellow-clerk in the India House. They appeared from 1820–25. The first series was printed in 1823, the second, The Last Essays of Elia, in 1833.

In 1823 the Lamb’s had left London and taken a cottage at Islington, and had practically adopted Emma Isola, a young orphan, whose presence brightened their lives until her marriage in 1833 to E. Moxon, the publisher. In 1825 Lamb retired, and lived at Enfield and Edmonton. But his health was impaired, and his sister’s attacks of mental alienation were ever becoming more frequent and of longer duration. During one of his walks he fell, slightly hurting his face. The wound developed into erysipelas, and he died on December 29, 1834. His sister survived until 1847.

The place of Lamb as an essayist and critic is the very highest. His only rival in the former department is Addison, but in depth and tenderness of feeling, and richness of fancy Lamb is the superior. In the realms of criticism there can be no comparison between the two. Lamb is here at once profound and subtle, and his work led as much as any other influence to the revival of interest in and appreciation of our older poetry. His own writings, which are self-revealing in a quite unusual and always charming way, and the recollections of his friends, have made the personality of Lamb more familiar to us than any other in our literature, except that of Johnson. His weaknesses, his oddities, his charm, his humour, his stutter, are all as familiar to his readers as if they had known him, and the tragedy and noble self-sacrifice of his life add a feeling of reverence for a character we already love.

[From A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin, 1910]

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