Circumlocution

I have arrived (surprisingly quickly, given the pace of the novel) at Valancourt's profession of love to Emily. I wonder when authors began to publish these scenes, and it they've always gone as badly for the hero and/or (certainly in Radcliffe's case) the author.

Since I met you I have admired you more than any girl I've ever met since...I met you.

At length he said with a hesitating voice "This lovely scene! I am going to leave--to leave you--perhaps forever! These moments may never return: I cannot resolve to neglect, though I scarcely dare to avail myself of them. Let me, however, without offending the delicacy of your sorrow, venture to declare the admiration I must always feel of your goodness,--O! that at some future period I might be able to call it love!"

"I will not presume to intrude this subject longer upon your attention at this time, but I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention, that these parting moments would lose much of their bitterness if I might be allowed to hope the declaration I have made would not exclude me from your presence in the future."
"But pardon the question; I scarcely know what I say. If I might dare to hope, that you think me not unworthy of such honour, and might be permitted sometimes to enquire after your health, I should now leave you with comparative tranquility."
"Nor will I affect to be insensible of this--but what is to console me for my candour? I distress you, and would now leave the subject, if I might carry with me a hope of being some time permitted to renew it."

Austen writes several marvelous declaration scenes in Pride and Prejudice and Emma, all of which go bad deliberately. Even Mr. Darcy fumbles, but there's no doubt that she makes him misstep on purpose. Mr. Elton and Mr. Collins are uproariously bad. She includes one serious attempt in Sense and Sensibility, and it comes off half-well. I can't recall how they go in Northanger Abbey, but I think she might take the strategy of Trollope and Dickens and leave them veiled, or off-camera. This is probably the best strategy, and it also applies to childbirth, violent illness, and the wedding night. The Bronte heroes probably declare as well as anyone else, but they aren't normal men. They are men who dress up as gypsy women and hide wives in the attic. Their conversation is already so melodramatic that declaring love for the first time is as casual as ordering coffee.

I botched my declaration of affection to J rather badly. I, like Valancourt, stuttered around the truth for an unbearably long time and finally (when she helped me along to the point) I declared in such a cowardly and left-handed way you'd think I was attempting to give up. (Fortunately, she was forgiving) Like mailing a letter (see previous post) declaring feelings is one of the few truly irrevocable things left in the world; sadly, maybe even more so than marriage vows. It is terribly dangerous, which is why it is so very romantic. And perhaps, why it ought to be left out of literature as a serious character-building device. Men aren't supposed to succeed at that sort of thing. If they've never done it, they are terrified; if they have experience, they aren't worthy of the heroine.


Today I read (while teaching 4th grade) Iliad II, Aeneid VI, Udolpho, Is. 40, Rev. 9. Udolpho is very good in some spots, especially where she imitates Milton. Only some of it is as dreadful as Valancourt.

This is something you can only find in Homer, at least in the way he does it:

                ἱμερτὸν Τιταρησσὸν...
ὅς ῥ᾽ ἐς Πηνειὸν προΐει καλλίρροον ὕδωρ,
οὐδ᾽ ὅ γε Πηνειῷ συμμίσγεται ἀργυροδίνῃ,
ἀλλά τέ μιν καθύπερθεν ἐπιρρέει ἠΰτ᾽ ἔλαιον:
ὅρκου γὰρ δεινοῦ Στυγὸς ὕδατός ἐστιν ἀπορρώξ.

The lovely Titaressa,
which thereupon sends out into Peneus its fair-flowing water,
nor in the silver-eddying Peneus is it mingled together,
but it flows over as olive oil;
for it is steep water, of dread Styx.

I thought you had come up to town for pleasure...I call that business.