Charles Kingsley & E. F. Benson on the Importance of Bathing: Part 1

The Church House Inn in Holne, England,
where Charles Kingsley wrote his 1863 novel
The Water Babies

Recently, my wife suggested that we watch the TV series based on E. F. Benson's novel Mapp & Lucia, and that I should read another E. F. Benson novel. While I'm not sure what prompted this suggestion, I enjoyed watching the TV series again. I also enjoyed reading The Babe, a novel E. F. Benson wrote in 1897. Like his previous novel, Limitations, it affords us a view of undergraduate life at Cambridge University in England. This time, however, Benson's tale is more humorous and colorful. While it's not a perfect comparison, the novel reminded me The Adventures of Verdant Green by Cuthbert M Bede, which takes place at Oxford, England's other great university town.

Just as interesting and quirky as Verdant Green's friends, the title character of The Babe is a celebrated rugby player who drops colorful quotes in casual conversation, and lives a life of easy and comfort while, perhaps, he should be studying. Here's one such quote:

I hate water except when it’s a hot bath. Water is meant not to drink, but to heat and wash in.”

“Babe, do you mean to say you have hot baths in the morning?”

“Invariably when the weather is cold, and a cigarette, whatever the weather is. I am no Charles Kingsley, though I used to collect butterflies when I was a child.”

--from The Babe by E. F. Benson

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that last year's trip to England took me to several places mentioned in Charles Kingsley's 1855 novel Westward Ho! These included Bideford and Clovelly, the latter a town on the coast of Devon where he spent his childhood. My wife and I also visited the tiny village of Holne, located on the outskirts of Dartmoor National Forest, where he was born. There we saw a church with a Charles Kingsley stain glass window, and a rare public house owned by the Church of England. Inside, the bartender kindly showed us the Charles Kingsley room, where the writer reportedly wrote part of his children's novel The Water Babies, and shared with us a little of his affection for the story.

The bartender never mentioned anything about Charles Kingsley's attitudes on bathing, but the tiny room had its own fireplace, and smoke from that fire must have seeped into Kingsley's clothes while he wrote. So perhaps, after a few hours of writing, especially in the winter, he might have felt he needed a bath. But that's what writing, and reading a great story is like. After immersing yourself in another world, you awaken in this one, and realize that you need to do something to enhance your life.

Bathing is a small way you can do that, I suppose. Personally, I much prefer travel, although bathing is cheaper, which means I can do it more often. Still, if I were to total up the cost of each day's hot water...

Dragon Dave

Touring Oxford With Verdant Green

Recently, my wife and I have been watching the Inspector Lewis TV series again. These stories take place in the English city of Oxford, where Lewis and his partner Hathaway solve all the most mysterious murders. Watching them reminds us of our own visit to Oxford, back in 2011. It was a day trip, and thus only allowed a brief tour of the streets and two museums. So we'd love to go back there and see this great university city again. One thing I wasn't expecting was to meet a new friend, who would take me back to Oxford, during this year's day-trip to Lyme Regis.

Picking up The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green in the Lyme Regis Museum, I wasn't certain what to expect. But it was filled with so many illustrations, apparently drawn by the author, Cuthbert Bede, that I ultimately decided to pick it up and give it a read. I'm certainly glad I did. For this historical novel transports me to 1840s Oxford, and according to the introduction by Anthony Powell, is one of the first great Oxford novels that inspired later authors to write about this famous town. This long list would no doubt include Colin Dexter, whose Inspector Morse books inspired the Inspector Lewis TV series.
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Mr. Verdant Green is a bright, scholarly chap, a man with impeccable manners, and beloved by his family. Yet he lacks practical knowledge of the outside world. The local priest has failed to make the argument with his parents that he should attend public school, but when Verdant reaches university age, he makes a concerted attempt to win over Mr. Green, and send his son away to enhance his education.

His family adore him, and hate the idea of sending him away, but the vicar insists that this is necessary for his maturation. So eventually they send him off, and Mr. Green accompanies his son Verdant to Oxford, where the priest's son is also studying. There, in addition to furthering his knowledge of Latin, classic literature, and a whole host of other subjects, Verdant will befriend the vicar's son and others who teach him the true necessities of a gentleman, such as drinking, smoking, and competitive sports.

I gather that Edward Bradley, a 19th century priest who wrote under the pseudonym of Cuthbert Bede, had difficulty initially placing this novel. So it was originally published in three parts, before it was later combined into one volume. That makes sense given the structure of the book. The first part forms a series of misadventures, in which Verdant rides down in a horse-drawn carriage with his father, along with his other future friends, who are smoking like chimneys, wildly blowing trumpets, taking turns with the reins as they indulge in their youthful need for speed, and ignoring their dogs that bark, howl, and chew holes in Mr. Green's pants. Once Verdant matriculates, and starts attending classes, the chapters form a series of misadventures, in which his friends play jokes on him, which he, innocent and good-natured soul that he is, takes with a smile. In addition to meeting many colorful characters, we learn some of the traditions that were practiced in Oxford at the time, and watch as Verdant repeatedly tries, and fails, to acquire skills in horsemanship, boat rowing, or even dog ownership. 

In the second portion of the book, Verdant's indefatigable nature wins him status and respect. He doggedly persists in trying to ride the wild, irascible horses available to students for hire, and even competes in a boating race. He also stands up for his college in a general all-city brawl, called the Town Versus Gown, in which the townspeople, who are forced to daily cowtow to these students, are allowed to work off their frustrations one night each year. (See the illustration on the cover). Although Verdant lacks fighting skills, he nonetheless stands with his friends (who have surreptitiously hired a professional boxer to accompany them) for this annual event. And we see how some of Verdant's friends reform their ways, and manage to graduate, while others are "plucked" or fail at their exams.

The third section of the novel forms more of a traditional love story, the bulk of it taking place during a holiday, when Verdant and his friends are staying with another wealthy family. He falls in love with one of the daughters, and accompanies her each time she walks out to sketch or paint. He even protects her from a bull that has slipped out of its pen, proving that he has matured greatly from the young boy who dwelt within the protective embrace of his family. We pull for Verdant, and urge him on, as he attempts to woo the beautiful girl. But can he compete with a more handsome and accomplished young man, who she has known and loved since childhood? And then, in the last few chapters, we travel back to Oxford, all too briefly, as Cuthbert Bede speeds us through the last two years of Verdant's time there. 

Will Verdant graduate? Will he marry? I'll let you discover the answer to those questions, as well as all the interesting (or bewildering?) traditions practiced in Oxford during the 1840s, if you choose to read The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green. Now, the only question is, where will you get your copy? I've already snagged the one in the Lyme Regis Museum. So you'll have to march down to your local bookstore, and demand a fresh new copy of this classic Oxford University novel. Or you could order one online. Whatever you do, make sure you get a copy that contains all of Cuthbert Bede's illustrations, because they can only enhance the pleasure you derive from this charming, humorous, and insightful book.

Dragon Dave

Peter F Hamilton On Sticking To Your Principles

A sign cries out to passersby in Oxford, England

MURDER. It was the Banner scored big and bold across all the street corner newspaper placards, most often garnished with adjectives such as foul, brutal, and insane. 

In "Watching Trees Grow," a novella in Peter F. Hamilton's short story collection Manhattan In Reverse, Family Investigator Edward Raleigh travels to Oxford, England in AD 1832. In this alternative world, the Roman Empire never collapsed. With technology evolving faster in this world than in ours, the average human lifespan increased significantly. Yet one person will not enjoy the benefits of a long life, enhanced technological resources, or centuries of fine English cuisine. That person is Justin Ascham Raleigh, who is found murdered in his Dunbar College dormitory. 

Despite the violence associated with our historical Roman Empire, Hamilton's alternative world doesn't condone murder under any circumstances. While Edward is shocked by the violence of the crime, he nonetheless pursues the clues, and investigates all the suspects. These include Peter Samuel Griffith, Justin's roommate who reported the crime, and his six close friends. As Justin's dormitory apartment yields no immediate clues, Edward adjourns to Oxford City police station, where he assists the detectives with the questioning. The greatest suspicion falls on Alexander Stephen Maloney, who had dinner with Justin on the evening of his death. Alexander has frequented gambling clubs of late, and been losing heavily. While Justin had no money that Alexander might have stolen, Justin had been pursuing a scientific idea in physics and spectrography that he believed would have guaranteed him a professorship. Might Alex, or someone else, have murdered Justin for the potential monetary value of his idea? Alas, Edward and the police detectives find no documentation to back up this hypothesis. Faced with a dearth of clues, Justin's death goes unsolved.

In AD 1853, Edward flies into Newark aerodrome in Manhattan City. While traveling on Raleigh family business, he snatches the opportunity to utilize advances in forensic techniques to link the DNA of one of the suspects to a cigar butt the police discovered during their investigation. 

"For Mary's sake," the suspect exclaims. "It's been twenty-one years."

"Yes. Twenty-one years, and he's still just as dead."

The evidence Edward collects is insufficient to solve the crime, and so sixty-seven years later, in AD 1920, Edward takes a scramjet-powered spaceplane from Gibraltar spaceport to Vespasian, a space station in orbit around Earth. From there he endures a three month journey aboard a spaceship powered by low-temperature ion plasma engines to Jupiter, and then a shuttle down to a spaceport on Ganymede, one of the gas giant's moons. From there, he travels by bus to the city of New Milan. 

All the buildings were free-standing igloos whose base and lower sections were constructed from some pale yellow silicate concrete, while the top third was a transparent dome. 

During his six-month stay on Ganymede to conduct Raleigh family business, he visits another of the original suspects. 

I waved a hand at the curving windows, with their thin reinforcement mesh of carbon strands. That particular carbon allotrope was the reason the glass could be so thin, one of the new miracles we took so much for granted. 

Carbon 60, as it is known, was discovered ten years previously by one of the murder suspects. Edward wonders if it might have been the idea Justin was working on, and the murderer killed him to pursue it instead. Alas, the interview yields no definitive proof, but Edward is assembling clues from the available evidence, and utilizing increases in technology to solve this century-old murder. 

Fast forward to AD 2038. A deep-flight ship exits a wormhole portal and lands at a habitat orbiting Eta Carinae. It has taken Edward over two hundred years, but he has finally forged a water-tight case. Standing on this massive space station orbiting a distant star, he arrests the person responsible for Justin's murder. Under questioning, the person admits to the crime. In a way, Edward feels as uncomfortable with arresting this person as he did about Justin's murder, as this individual has developed Justin's idea to radically advance human expansion to the stars. But Edward finds murder as unacceptable now as he did two hundred-and-two years ago, when he had just embarked on his career as an investigator for the Raleigh Family. 

"You took Justin's life away from him," I said. "We can produce a physical clone of him from the samples we kept. But that still won't be him. His personality, his uniqueness, is lost to us forever."

In killing Justin, the murderer steals Justin's idea, and uses it to create the kind of future that most of us can only dream about. In sticking to his principles, Edward persists with an investigation that most of us would have given up on, and thus preserves a future in which everyone matters. As to which individual contributes the most to his society, and the betterment of mankind, Peter F Hamilton leaves the reader to decide.

Dragon Dave

Peter F. Hamilton on the Mind of a Murderer

A black, fuel-efficient car arrives in Oxford, England

In his story, "Watching Trees Grow," author Peter F. Hamilton transports us to Oxford, England, in the year 1832 AD. This is a different 19^th Century England than we know from our history books, as Edward Buchanan Raleigh is jolted awake shortly after midnight by the “blasted telephone with its shrill, two-tone whistle.” On the other end of the line is the Raleigh Family’s missus dominicus, Francis Haughton Raleigh, who informs him that a member of the Raleigh family, a student at one of Oxford's colleges, has been murdered. Edward may be a Family investigator, but murder clearly frightens him. He wonders: “What kind of pre-Empire savage could do that to another person?” This gives him added reason to help the police solve the case, as “I didn’t want my child to come into a world where such horrors could exist.”

Like the murdered student, Edward studied at Oxford, first majoring in Science, then in Law. After graduation, he studied with the Family to gain his position as an investigator. Now he’s thirty-eight years old, with three children accredited by the Raleigh Family, although one he had to fight for one to be recognized, as it was the result of a youthful indiscretion. He's intelligent, thoughtful, and capable, but in his world, he's a mere child. His boss Francis is over four hundred years old, and has seen a vast amount of change in his life. When Francis was Edward’s age, electricity had yet to be harnessed, and medicine consisted of herbs boiled and mixed according to “already ancient lore.”

Within minutes, Francis picks him in his black car. His boss starts the battery, and winds up the motor potentiometer. As the car silently reaches 25 miles per hour, Francis regrets that the Roman Congress recently banned combustion engines. Edward reminds him of the long-term view: batteries will improve, petroleum is dangerous, a limited resource, but hazardous to the environment. Francis agrees with his much younger colleague: “Lusting after speed is a Shorts way of thinking.” Nevertheless, he’s impatient to reach the crime scene, and help the police solve the case. Sooner or later, he will have to stand before the heads of the Raleigh Family, and they won’t want to hear about an open investigation, or his lack of results.

One of Oxford's fine colleges

When the two men reach the city center, they find people trickling out of the taverns and cafes. Students are shouting, quoting obscure verse, drinking, fighting, and throwing bags and books around. Francis parks outside Dunbar College, a building of pale yellow stone. Inside, they climb the stairs to the victim’s room. Justin Aschan Raleigh was a typical final year student, with a three-room apartment, but he’s not enjoying his bedroom, parlor, and study anymore. The police detective warns Edward “This isn’t pretty.” Still, he can’t help but wince when he sees Justin’s chest smeared with blood, the result of a vicious slash to the abdomen. The knife juts from Justin’s right eye.

In our world, the fall of the Roman Empire decimated civilization. In Edward’s world, the Roman Empire found a way to remain effective, and avoided our centuries-long descent into barbarism. Human invention and technological progress continued unabated. Families such as the Raleighs safeguard their members’ interests, and medical advancements have lengthened the average lifespan by centuries. Yet Edward's world is not so different to our own that we cannot understand his reaction to Justin's ravaged body. The slash to the abdomen would most likely proven lethal, but killer wanted to make certain of Justin’s death, hence the final thrust into the skull. Much like you or I might perform under similar circumstances, Edward relies on the procedures drummed into him in his Investigation courses, and reminds the police detective to collect all available forensic evidence. Then he goes beyond this, and requests that the blood of all suspects and anyone in Justin's vicinity that night be tested for alcohol and narcotics. The murderer must be caught! As Edward puts it, “Whoever did this was way off balance.”

Dragon Dave

Read Peter F. Hamilton’s story, “Watching Trees Grow,” in his collection Manhattan In Reverse.

Drinking Tea with Inspector Lewis

On our visit last year to Yorkshire, we fell in love with Yorkshire Tea.  It had a nice flavor, and like the region of England from which it takes its name, seems more substantial than some other brands.  Since returning home, we've found it in several local stores, and thus look forward to our weekends together, when we can make a pot of tea and enjoy our breakfast together.  After savoring its rich flavor, we can then venture out upon our weekend adventures together.

In "Reputation", the first "Inspector Lewis" mystery, Lewis arrives at Heathrow Airport after working for two years in the British Virgin Islands. His new assistant, Detective Sergeant Hathaway, picks him up, but before they get back to the station they are called out to investigate a homicide.  That evening, jet-lagged and world-weary, Lewis arrives home.  His house is empty, his cupboards bare.  He empties his shopping bag of the few items he picked up at the grocery store.  And among those staples, those necessities of life, is a box of tea.

In a country as rich in history as England, regional distinctions often prove important.  People celebrate their local heritage, and support locally made products.  While Oxford is just outside London, Yorkshire (inhabited by "Northerners") seems a world away.  Yet Inspector Lewis doesn't reach for a tea made near London or Oxford.  He knows that, among the staples he needs to restart his life in England, he must have the rich taste and sustaining flavor found only in Yorkshire Tea.  

If it helps Inspector Lewis unravel the most perplexing mysteries (and helps Dragon Dave kickstart his weekends), you can rely on Yorkshire Tea to help you meet anything life demands of you.  

Well, at least nearly everything.  I mean, this is only a hot drink we're talking about, right? Oh, wow, I just heard thunder outside.  That's strange.  I wasn't expecting a storm today...

Dragon Dave

Exploring Oxford with Inspector Lewis

Oxford may seem impossibly old, yet it beats with fervor and vitality.  Its university attracts the smartest and brightest from all over the globe, and tourists flood the museums or gape from air-conditioned tour buses.  

Yet it’s also home to murder, which is why Inspector Lewis patrols its streets, inspecting crime scenes and questioning witnesses.

The TV series serves as a love letter to the city, as the camera slowly pans past historic buildings, or grants us entry to fabulous mansions.  It makes us feel like we could instantly connect with Oxford, if we spent but a few hours exploring the literary stomping grounds of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Colin Dexter.  

Yet so many people visit the town each year that the colleges are barred, and the gates only open to key cards, those fortunate enough to know someone who belongs there, and of course, police detectives such as Inspector Lewis.

A few hours spent walking the public paths, and seeing so much history crammed into so small a place, only makes one hunger for a second visit, one planned with more forethought.  To walk her less traveled paths, to peer deeper into Oxford's beating heart.

For Oxford is full of many mysteries, and not all of those involve murder.

Alas, another time…

Dragon Dave

Inspector Lewis at the Oxford Natural History Museum: Part 3

In “Down Among the Fearful,” the way a postgraduate student was murdered leads Lewis and Hathaway to the Oxford Natural History Museum.  There they speak with a man named Kanan Dutta, an advocate for Euthanasia, who has an office off the second floor landing.  Then they walk down hallways that overlook the displays on the museum floor.

I loved all the museum's architectural features.  I was particularly intrigued by the columns lining the second floor landing.  Each is carved from a different type of stone.  Altogether, they represent the mineral diversity of the United Kingdom.

Porphyrite from Scotland

Schorl Rock from Carnmoor, Cornwall

Ophicalcite (Serpentine) from Connemara, Ireland

The museum is closed right now, as work is being done to its roof.  It’ll be interesting to see how the museum looks on our next visit, when that process is complete.  I wonder how the new roof may change the overall look of the interior, if I’ll see any new notable aspects to the interior architecture, and how the exhibits may have been changed. 

If you've enjoyed this brief tour of the Oxford Natural History Museum, I hope you get to go there some day.  Personally, I can’t wait to return!

Dragon (Dino-lovin’) Dave

Inspector Lewis at the Oxford Natural History Museum: Part 2

Okay, fair dues: Not all the dinosaurs at the Oxford Natural History Museum look underfed.  

But then, Utahraptor can provide for himself, as the accompanying sign makes clear.

Ah, maybe he's the reason all the other dinosaurs seem little more than skeletons!  You know, maybe scientists really shouldn't clone his DNA.

Dragon Dave

Inspector Lewis at the Natural History Museum: Part 1

If you watch Masterpiece Mystery on your local PBS station, then you no doubt saw the latest series of mysteries featuring Inspector Lewis and D.S. Hathaway.  The series is centered in the English university town of Oxford, and in “Down Among the Fearful,” a murder investigation takes the detectives to Oxford National History Museum.  This gave me a special thrill, as I toured the museum on a recent trip to England, and would love to visit it again some day. 

There’s so much in the museum to see and appreciate, but for me, the star attraction was all the dinosaurs.  Who knows?  If I wasn’t writing a novel about dragons, I could very well have called myself Dinosaur Dave.  I like them that much.

I only have one problem the Oxford Natural History Museum.  The staff really need take better care of their dinosaurs.  I mean, look at them: they really need to put some meat on them bones!

Dragon (Dinosaur?) Dave

Related Internet Links

Watch "Down Among the Fearful"