Gaslight Digest Tuesday, February 2 1999 Volume 01 : Number 039


In this issue:


   Self-Introduction
   RE: "The Music Essence"
   Re: Self-Introduction
   Re: Chat: new mystery! series
   Chat: No books for new series
   Re: The Music Essence
   Re:  Re: The Music Essence
   Today in History - Feb. 1
   Re: _Haunted Lives_  and New Web Search page
   Re: Self-Introduction
   Literature as Art?
   Bob Eldridge intro
   Fiction? Literature? Reading.
   Re: Fiction? Literature? Reading.
   Re: The Music Essence
   Today in History - Pork Sausage Day
   This week's author
   Re: This week's author
   Re: The Irish Zorro
   Desert Islander
   Re: This week's author
   Re: This week's author
   Re: Bob Eldridge intro

-----------------------------THE POSTS-----------------------------

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 10:01:20 -0500 (EST)
From: DOUGLAS GREENE <dgreene(at)odu.edu>
Subject: Self-Introduction

Havign just joined the list, I wanted to introduce myself.  I am the
editor of a collection, DETECTION BY GASLIGHT (Dover), made up,
obviously enough, of Victorian and Edwardian detective stories and
with Jack Adrian I recently edited THE DETECTIONS OF MISS CUSACK by
L. t. Meade and Robert Eustace--a collection of 6 detective stories
from the late 90's about a woman detective.

Doug Greene

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 09:25:29 -0600
From: athan chilton <ayc(at)UIUC.EDU>
Subject: RE: "The Music Essence"

I had a chance to finish this story & am glad to see others are still
commenting on it--that means I'm not too late to put my .02 in!  My
reaction to it was very personal, as you will see...

I read this story with a weird sense of familiarity.  It isn't that I've
read it before; it's partially that I've *had* the experience of
synesthesia.  All of my life I have had very poor vision (at present -16
diopters cylinder prescription) and perhaps because of this, my hearing has
always been very acute.  It's almost as if what I've lacked in vision I've
been able to make up for in auditory sensitivity.  There was one occasion
when I was younger (and my consciousness not wholly unaltered) that I was
able to 'see' music as well as hear it, and this was an astounding and very
moving experience for me, the memory of which has never left me.  Imagine
the music of Ravi Shankar et al as twining streams of jeweled sound--red
and green and gold!  It was amazing to me that my mind could create and
'see' such things even though my eyes could see only imperfectly things
that were 'really there'...

I have also developed special ways of using what vision I do have--extreme
close-up vision--to allow me to do very fine woven beadwork & other small
detail work.  I've been grateful for this ability, but in the long run I've
begun to feel that it doesn't make up for the fact that I can't see
anything beyond my own nose without very,  very thick glasses which still
don't give me full correction.  So I've decided to go ahead with LASIK eye
surgery--in just over a week, in fact--but now, reading this tale has given
me the strangest new thoughts:  "What if I discover that I don't like being
able to see that well?  Do I truly want to lose the Monet-like
Impressionist blur that is my uncorrected vision?"  These thoughts are
strange, and make me comprehend what Margaret must have felt when she
replaced the "limiting" silence of her deafness with the world's audible
cacaphony!  I'm going to go through with the surgery--but I have the odd
sense that I will be losing something, too--something which people with
normal eyesight have never had and probably cannot comprehend.  But the
world looks so different and so magical, if you will, when you cannot see
it clearly, and the seasons become blurs of pure color...  Well!  The
surgeon says that there's no way I can ever be 100% correctable even with
this surgery, so I won't be completely bereft!

But personal musings aside, I liked this story very much; I enjoyed
Margaret's passion and comprehension of music as something sacred; I liked
the entire atmosphere.  Ludlow is my kind of writer--perceptive, able to
create a mood with such deft atmospheric touches you don't see him doing
it; able to bring the reader into the world he is creating.  I didn't want
the story to end--and that's the mark of a good tale for me.

athan
ayc(at)uiuc.edu

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 10:51:44 -0500
From: "Richard L. King" <rking(at)INDIAN.VINU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Self-Introduction

Welcome, Doug!

I've got a copy of DETECTIVE BY GASLIGHT and have enjoyed it.

Best wishes,

Richard King
rking(at)indian.vinu.edu

DOUGLAS GREENE wrote:

> Havign just joined the list, I wanted to introduce myself.  I am the
> editor of a collection, DETECTION BY GASLIGHT (Dover), made up,
> obviously enough, of Victorian and Edwardian detective stories and
> with Jack Adrian I recently edited THE DETECTIONS OF MISS CUSACK by
> L. t. Meade and Robert Eustace--a collection of 6 detective stories
> from the late 90's about a woman detective.
>
> Doug Greene

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 09:26:07 -0700
From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com>
Subject: Re: Chat: new mystery! series

>I think that the the name of the writer was Russell Lewis,  I was
>impressed by the program

Checked Amazon, Amazon UK and Barnes & Noble and can find no books.  This
would be a disappointment if it's just tv scripts.  Very compelling
character.

Deborah

Deborah McMillion
deborah(at)gloaming.com
http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 10:05:37 -0700
From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com>
Subject: Chat: No books for new series

This from the PBS Online guide:

>>Heat of the Sun is a coproduction of Carlton Productions and WGBH Boston.
>>Private Lives (Episode 1) is written by Russell Lewis and directed by
>>Adrian Shergold. Hide in Plain Sight (Episodes 2 and 3) is written by
>>Timothy Prager and directed by Diarmuid Lawrence. The Sport of Kings
>>(Episodes 4 and 5) is
written by Russell Lewis and directed by Paul Seed.<<

Doesn't sound like it's a book series.  Too bad--really excellent.  Here's
the PBS site if anyone wants more information:

http://www.pbs.org/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+pbsonline+pbsonline+28481+0+wAAA+Hea

t%26of%26the%26sun%26%28Heat%26of%26the%26sun%29%3Ahomepage%26%28Heat%26of%26the
%26sun%29%3Astation

Is that long enough?  But it should take you directly to HEAT OF THE SUN.

Deborah

Deborah McMillion
deborah(at)gloaming.com
http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 12:38:37 -0700
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Re: The Music Essence

On  Sat, 30 Jan 1999 James Kearman wrote:

>Several years ago, the NY Times Magazine carried an article about rising
militance among the hearing impaired. The militant deaf don't want to learn
to speak with their vocal cords--for them, signing is a perfectly valid
means of expression, one that sets them apart from those who can hear but
not sign, and who want to treat the hearing impaired as if they are
> handicapped and inferior.

This brings to mind one of the theses of Jean M. Auel's "Earth's Children" 
series (_The Clan of the Cave Bear_, etc. - which also explain why I couldn't 
take much of H.G. Welles' caveman stories):  The Neanderthal "Clan" are 
physiologically incapable of fluent vocal speech, and so they are extremely 
adept at communicating with gestures and body language, including very 
sophisticated shading of meaning - a skill the articulate "Others" (our 
subspecies) find it difficult to learn - particularly since only by accident 
does one of the Others (Ayla, the heroine of the series) realize that the Clan 
_are_ communicating with each other, and therefore fully human.

Jerry
gmc(at)libra.pvh.org

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 15:33:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Zozie(at)aol.com
Subject: Re:  Re: The Music Essence

In a message dated 2/1/99 7:48:32 PM, you wrote:

<<Several years ago, the NY Times Magazine carried an article about rising
militance among the hearing impaired. The militant deaf don't want to learn
to speak with their vocal cords--for them, signing is a perfectly valid
means of expression>>

I have a vivid memory of walking down a street in New York's Greenwich Village
in the 60's and watching a deaf person on the sidewalk "yelling" signs at a
person hanging out of a second-story window, also yelling.  There was no
question in my mind that they were shouting at each other -- not because of
the distance between them, but the passion in whatever it was they were
communicating.

hmmmm
phoebe

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 14:42:49 -0700
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - Feb. 1

1861
                A furious Governor Sam Houston storms out of a legislative 
session upon learning that
                Texas has voted 167-7 to secede from the Union.
            1902
                U.S. Secretary of State John Hay protests Russian privileges in 
China as a violation of the
                "open door policy."
            1905
                Germany contests French rule in Morocco.
            1909
                U.S. troops leave Cuba after installing Jose Miguel Gomez as 
president.

     Born on February 1
            1878
                Hattie Caraway, first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
            1901
                Clark Gable, American actor famous for his roles in _Mutiny on 
the Bounty_ and _Gone
                With the Wind_.
            1902
                Langston Hughes, African-American poet

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 13:57:31 -0800
From: Patricia Teter <PTeter(at)getty.edu>
Subject: Re: _Haunted Lives_  and New Web Search page

Bob C., I greatly enjoyed your comments on Le Fanu's
Haunted Lives; I am severely behind on the Gaslight
readings, but did have the opportunity to read half of
the first installment.  I'm looking forward to the remainder.

On another note;
While searching for Mayne Reid on the Gaslight website last
week I noticed the new Search page.  Looks great, Stephen!
The layout is very clear and readable, and when moving to
a link, the screen jumps out of frames into a full-size screen.
Love that!  And, I just discovered how to display more than
thirty hits at one time!

Patricia

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 18:56:29 -0500
From: "S.T. Karnick" <skarnick(at)INDY.NET>
Subject: Re: Self-Introduction

Doug is too modest to mention it, but he is the highly esteemed editor and
publisher of an excellent series of mystery short story collections, some of
which touch on our period, such as his new collection of Quincannon stories
by Bill Pronzini.  The Detection by Gaslight collection is well worth having
and includes some stories we've already discussed, and I look forward to
reading the Cusack collection. Welcome to the group, Doug.

Best w's,

S.T. Karnick

- -----Original Message-----
From: DOUGLAS GREENE <dgreene(at)odu.edu>
To: gaslight(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA <gaslight(at)MtRoyal.AB.CA>
Date: Monday, February 01, 1999 10:10 AM
Subject: Self-Introduction


>Havign just joined the list, I wanted to introduce myself.  I am the
>editor of a collection, DETECTION BY GASLIGHT (Dover), made up,
>obviously enough, of Victorian and Edwardian detective stories and
>with Jack Adrian I recently edited THE DETECTIONS OF MISS CUSACK by
>L. t. Meade and Robert Eustace--a collection of 6 detective stories
>from the late 90's about a woman detective.
>
>Doug Greene
>

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 17:29:32 -0800
From: Patricia Teter <PTeter(at)getty.edu>
Subject: Literature as Art?

First, welcome to the group Bob Eldridge and Doug
Greene.  Glad to have you both join the Gaslight discussions.

Bob E. wrote: <<A story can also have value as literature, which is
a different matter, and I'd be happy to see what other people think
about this subject - if it's not too much of a can of worms, or too stale
a subject. One particular aspect of this debate, and one which bears
on all of the genres that come up on Gaslight, is the issue of literature
as Art vs. literature as Escape. Are we reading Literature or Fiction?
(I tend to see this as a false dilemma, but many others may not.)>>

Interesting comments, Bob E.

Literature or Fiction?  All of it is Fiction, but only some of it could be
called Literature. <grin>  To some degree, this is very subjective,
however, would I call the majority of pulp fiction generated around
the turn of the century Literature?  No, but it does have value as
literature, and some of it is great fun to read.  As you can see
from the Gaslight website, over the years we have read a wide
range of fiction, from literature to pulp serials, as well as a few
pathetic stories we have consigned to oblivion.  Some writers,
naturally are better than others, but I must say that every story has
been enlightening in some manner.

Any other thoughts about this issue?

Patricia

Patricia A. Teter
PTeter(at)Getty.edu

===0===



Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 21:14:46 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: Bob Eldridge intro

Bob Eldridge writes:

<<. I was aware of the
writer from his hashish book - of which I've had a reprint on my shelves
for some time, but which I haven't really looked at yet. I will be more
eager now to look at it, and at the two other Ludlow stories that seem
to be available to us at this site. <<

I thought that I would take this opportunity to point out that the 1903
edition of _The Hashish Eater_ has a cover illustration by Aubrey
Beardsley.

<<
I think we owe Robert Champ our
thanks for digging up this story (and, thanks, too, I guess to Don
Dulchinos) and for typing it? Did you really type this out, Robert?
That's dedication.<<

Well, Bob, we do what we can to help out our fearless leader, Stephen
Davies, a man to whom we all owe an enormous debt of gratitude.

Don Dulchinos was very helpful.  Don and I worked out a deal.  I
wanted three Ludlow stories for Gaslight: "The Phial of Dread,"
"The Music Essence," and "The Taxidermist." I was able to get
a copy of the first at the U. of Maryland library; Don sent me his
_only_ photocopies of the last two on the understanding that I would
type them up both for Gaslight and his Ludlow page.  I did just
that.

I am also going to try finding Ludlow?s  Poesque story, "A Strange
Acquaintance of Mine." This tale is set in New Orleans during a
fever epidemic.

<<
Some of the values
we see in Victorian literature strike me as more desirable than others;
but the key thing is seeing their difference from whatever we hold
sacred at any given moment today. Some other readers have alluded to
this experience. I suppose this is what we might call the value of older
literature as historical documents.<<

Yes, very often I will read a story, and value it, chiefly because of a
window that it opens up onto another time.  The story might not interest
me, the characters may pall; but the description of some out-of-the-way
place, of a particular belief, a way of doing things that has passed, hold
me fascinated.  I think many of us on Gaslight are like that: a certain
amount of nostalgia for the past is strong in us, though we are quite
aware that this past was not without its problems.

What I try to find, personally,  are values that I can still adhere to.
As someone not exactly enamored of the present, I look back to a time that
at least seems saner, more innocent, and more whole.

<< A story can also have value as literature, which is a different
matter, and I'd be happy to see what other people think about this subject
- - if it's not too much of a can of worms, or too stale a subject. One
particular aspect of this debate, and one which bears on all of the
genres that come up on Gaslight, is the issue of literature as Art vs.
literature as Escape. Are we reading Literature or Fiction? (I tend to
see this as a false dilemma, but many others may not.)<<

I believe most Gaslight members would agree with your last statement.
My own view is that stories are often quite sophisticated and rise to
the level of  (sometimes) exquisite art.  On the other hand, we
see tales that we realize are not of very high quality artistically,
though it may have elements that intrigue us.  No one, I believe, is bound
to like only the best--I know that I like many things that are not
particularly good and shun others that I am well aware are superior.
(Taste doesn?talways equal aesthetic value.)

<< The subject of synaesthesia has come up. (I had just read Bester's
Tiger, Tiger! aka The Stars My Destination, which another reader
mentioned; I would think it must be considered one of the landmarks of
1950s American science fiction.) But when I was reading about the hero's
effort in "The Music Essence" to co-ordinate colors with musical tones,
I was reminded more of efforts widespread in the Renaissance, and going
back to Neoplatonic times, to co-ordinate all sorts of things. Such
philosphers, of what we would now call an occult temperament, used to
line things up in charts to show the harmony of the universe. The seven
planets, the seven metals, the seven colors, the seven tones; the four
elements, the four humors, the four seasons; etc. etc.This view of the
universe, as a harmonious composition, was widespread all during the
Middle Ages and reached flood tide in the seventeenth century, even as
the scientific view was beginning to take root. I would think that a
story that builds (in part) on that sort of world view, even in the
mid-19th century, would owe some of its power to the lure of nostalgia.
I don't mean any of this condescendingly. That lure is still potent
today (and I am certainly not immune to it, nor do I wish to be); I
suspect is will get more potent as the vertigo induced by progress
becomes more acute.<<

Yes, in the case of Ludlow, I believe this is true.  He calls himself in
_The Hasheesh Eater_, a Pythagorean. But much of what we see as the
finest in nineteenth-century literature does owe a debt to the Middle
Ages.  For example, the works of DeQuincey and Melville draw strongly
on seventeenth-century writers like Sir Thomas Browne.

<<
 Do we get a preview of coming attractions for the Le Fanu piece?
Is it mystery, or supernatural, or what?<<

A good question.  We will have to wait for the rest of it (this is a novel
being given to  us in parts (why not as a serial?), so we don?t quite know
what LeFanu is doing.

Welcome to Gaslight!

Bob C.



_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Robert L. Champ
rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu
Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity

Whatever things are pure, whatever things are
lovely, whatever things are of good report, if
there is any virtue and if there is anything
praiseworthy; meditate on these things
                                 Philippians 4:8

rchamp7927(at)aol.com       robertchamp(at)netscape.net
_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

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Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 07:32:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Susan Demers <susandemers(at)hotmail.com>
Subject: Fiction? Literature? Reading.

Bob Eldridge's query as to the nature of the material with which we
choose to spend our halogen-lit evenings brings to mind a recent comment
of my father's.  He is a lifetime reader who became a college professor.
(Largely I have always thought for the opportunity to infect other
readers.)One of four brothers he is the only one to graduate from high
school.  Ultimately he collected 2 M.A.s, a Ph.D. and an Ed.D.

As we were discussing how siblings can be so very different, he began to
talk about his mother.  She was a dour and hard-working Scot
Presbyterian emigre who demanded much of her hard working sons. When she
caught my uncles reading Zane Grey she confiscated the books as trash
and policed their reading for many months.  Initially they would sneak
around trying to cadge copies of magazines(It was the age of the short
story.)and books.  In the end, their interest was exhausted and they got
out of the habit of reading which was an undeveloped one at best.  He
maintains that if they had been allowed to read the trash they would
have out of desperation moved on to other things.  (At this point my dad
who was extolling the virtues of Anna Quinlan's wonderful assay "How
Reading Changed My Life" confessed that he had never been able to
stomach the Waverley novels although they were "supposed" to be good for
him and that he simply ignored his mother to read all the seafaring
genre junk he could get his hands on!)

I think he is indeed correct.  That reading is a habit which must be fed
and nourished and these genre stories that we are engaged in reading
give us the opportunity spend time in another era, to read some of the
material that shaped our parents and grandparents views of America and
the twentieth century and most wonderfully for me, to slow time if only
for a half hour or so to savor language written by folk who were not in
a rush and who believed in the power of mere words to entertain, cast a
spell, create an alternate reality, comment on life, have an opinion or
idea or two. Most refreshing.

Susan Demers

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 08:53:54 -0700
From: Deborah McMillion Nering <deborah(at)gloaming.com>
Subject: Re: Fiction? Literature? Reading.

>I think he is indeed correct.  That reading is a habit which must be fed
>and nourished and these genre stories that we are engaged in reading
>give us the opportunity spend time in another era

Susan,

Thanks for a great story and I heartily agree.  My father was addicted to
early science fiction and read loads of "trash" scifi magazines in the
middle part of this century.  I remember being very attracted to the covers
of them and would sneak them at 6 years old to try and read.  I was afraid
someone would say they were too old for me but when found out my father
gave me a big stack of them.  Somewhere along the line I started reading
Nancy Drew, Biographies of Famous People, and finally into Dumas, Austin,
Alcott, Dickens, Hammett, Raymond Chandler and H.P.Lovecraft.  Eclectic at
best.

Yet a close friend had the same experience of your father's, books were not
encouraged in his house and he never got in the habit of reading.  I
started him back up again with the same method my parents used--great books
in weird covers.  Once he started reading that was it.  So it's never too
late.  His cross section though covers all the lost children books he
missed out on to engrossing reading of Scientific American and Armchair
Physics.

So it's not only another era, it's another dimension as well!

Best,
Deborah

Deborah McMillion
deborah(at)gloaming.com
http://www.gloaming.com/deborah.html

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 09:28:10 -0700
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Re: The Music Essence

The full issue I cut this from was forwarded to me through Medlib-L for another 
story - but this story's parallel to "The Music Essence" is quite striking.

Jerry
gmc(at)libra.pvh.org

To: nursingnetwork <nursingnetwork(at)Majordomo.net>
Date: Monday, February 01, 1999 10:38 AM
Subject: Today's Healthcare News from the Nursing Network - 2/1/99

Today's Headlines for Monday, 2/1/99 - Please note that some links may no
longer be active because of the date of the story

Title: Blind man says sight a burden
Resource: AP Wire Service
When doctors restored Shirl Jennings' sight, his old world of darkness
filled with fear and frustration. Used to seeing nothing, suddenly seeing
everything was a shock. Images appeared but he did not know what they were
without touching or smelling them. Lacking depth perception, walking down a
sidewalk became a frightening journey. He tripped over curbs, stumbled over
things and could not walk up stairs. He did not understand facial
expressions. When he tried to go back to work as a masseur, the body parts
began to disgust him. Jennings, whose story inspired the movie "At First
Sight," had no visual memory when he regained his sight at age 51. The
experimental surgery fixed his eyes, but his mind did not know how to
interpret the images flooding his senses.
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558276761-979

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Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 11:56:37 -0700
From: Jerry Carlson <gmc(at)libra.pvh.org>
Subject: Today in History - Pork Sausage Day

            1848
                The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo formally ends the Mexican War.
            1870
                The press agencies Havas, Reuter and Wolff sign an agreement 
whereby between them
                they can cover the whole world.
            1876
                The National Baseball League is founded with eight teams.
            1900
                Six cities, Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Chicago and 
St. Louis agree to form
                baseball's American League.
            1901
                Mexican government troops are badly beaten by Yaqui Indians.
            1916
                U.S. Senate votes independence for Philippines, effective in 
1921.

     Born on February 2
            1754
                Charles Maurice de Tallyrand-Perigord, minister of foreign 
affairs for Napoleon I, who
                represented France brilliantly at the Congress of Vienna.
            1882
                James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet who wrote _Ulysses_ and 
_Portrait of a Young Man_.
            1890
                Charles Correl, "Andy" of the "Amos and Andy" radio program.
            1895
                George Halas, National Football League co-founder.

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 17:49:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ <rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu>
Subject: This week's author

Whenever I am at sixes-and-sevenses about an author whose work
appeared in the first two or three decades of this century, I
invariably turn to that mine of information, Kunitz and Haycraft's
_Twentieth-Century Authors_.  The book, as usual, had some
interesting information to communicate about this week's author.
After reading her brief bio, I'm sure you'll say along with me,
What an extraordinary person!

Bob C.

Benson, Stella (1892-December 6, 1933), English novelist, was born
at Lutwyche Hall, Muchwenlock, Shropshire, the daughter of
Ralph Beaumont Benson and Caroline (Chomondeley) Benson,
daughter of the Rev. R. H. Cholmondeley.  May Cholmendeley,
the novelist, was her aunt.

Stella was a delicate child, and so was educated privately, at home,
on the French Riviera, in Germany and in Switzerland. A lifelong
love of travel early declared itself.  Just before the war she took
an interest in woman suffrage and worked for a time in the East
End of London for the Charity Organization Society. Dissatisfied
with the Society's methods, she felt that the best way to see
the life of the poor was to share it. She therefore opened a small
genreal shop in the depressed district of Hoxton, taling a
local woman as partner.  There she remained until 1917, writing
her first two novels, _I Pose_ and _This Is the End_ during that
period.  _I Pose_ was sent to the great publishing house
of Macmillan, with a request for a decision in a week's time,
and accepted by them.  Miss Benson then became a land worker,
but owing to the weakness of her lungs left for America in June
1918.

She was under doctor's orders for California, but spent some time
(and all her money) in New York and New England, so that
when she arrived in California she had to take menial employment
on a ranch.  Just before Christmas, 1918, she arrived in San
Francisco with five dollars in her pocket, and on Christmas day
she finished her third novel, _Living Alone_.  She passed
eighteen months living in a tiny room in Berkeley, working first
as lady's maid, bill collector, and book agent, but later securing
more suitable posts, first as tutor in the University of California
and next as editorial reader for the University Press.

In January, 1920, she set off for England again by way of the
Far East.  She took eighteen months on the journey and had all
manner of adventures, inclufing tiger shooting in India, teaching
fifty Chinese boys in a mission school, and working in the X-ray
department of an American hospital at Peking.  In China, too,
she met the man she was to marry--John O'Gorman Anderson,
of the Customs service.  The wedding took place in London in
1921, and the honeymoon was spent in traveling the American
continent from East to West in a Ford car, a journey described in
_Little World_.

Back in China, the Andersons were stationed first at the remote
village of Mengste, in the Yunnan, next to the bitterly cold
Kirin province of Manchuria, and later in an upcountry town
in South China, whence they escaped with difficulty from a
dangerous situation caused by the internecine wars.  Stella
Benson's later books included _Good-bye, Stranger_, a retelling
of familiar myths and stories, _The Man Who Missed the 'Bus_,
an exercise in the uncanny, and _Tobit Transplanted_ (American
title: _The Far-Away Bride_), which won her the Feminia
Vie Heureuse Prize.  It relateds with intricate detail and
considerable insight the life of a White Russian community in
Manchuria.  _Worlds Within Worlds_ was a collection of travel
articles from magazines.  Twho collections of short stories, _Hope
Against Hope_ and _Christmas Formula_ wre also made.  Her
last place of residence was Hongay, in the province of Tongking.
There she died of pneumonia a month before her forty-first
birthday.

"My first book, _I Pose_," wrote Stella Benson in the last year
of her life, "was written in order to Show Off...._Living Alone_
was the first of my books the writing of which interested me
impersonally--the first, in fact, that was in some measure a
book about _other people_, not only about myself in different
masochistic or romantic or inverted guises...._The Poor Man_
was written in a mood of revulsion against visions, and for
this reason was a very formless and--in a sense--an even more
intemperate book than its predecessors....My last novel,
_Tobit Transplanted_, being written with a fixed frame (the
frame provided by the apocryphal story), allowed me greater
scope than usual for detachment of outlook.  It is my first
really consistent effort to record, as honestly as was possible
for me, the point of view of people _as other people_not as
people seen by me or seen through myself, but people _seeing_
by themsleves--each from the vantage point of his own identity."

Stella Benson was recognized by the few from her beginnings
as a wit and an original, but it was only with the publication
of _Tobit Transplanted_ that she reached high circulation
figures.  Frail, diffident, and modest, she wrote anywhere and
at any time, using a pencil and working in an exercise book.
Tolstoy was her most admired author. She was devoted to dogs,
which figured largely both in her books and her life, was a fine
horsewoman, and made competent drawings in pen-and-ink.


_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Robert L. Champ
rchamp(at)polaris.umuc.edu
Editor, teacher, anglophile, human curiosity

Whatever things are pure, whatever things are
lovely, whatever things are of good report, if
there is any virtue and if there is anything
praiseworthy; meditate on these things
                                 Philippians 4:8

rchamp7927(at)aol.com       robertchamp(at)netscape.net
_________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 15:45:29 -0800
From: Patricia Teter <PTeter(at)getty.edu>
Subject: Re: This week's author

Bob C., thank you for the Stella Benson biographical
information.  After reading this week's story, I was
very curious about Benson and her odd little tale.
The location and characters now make sense,
but I am still contemplating the disturbing ending.

Has anyone read any other piece by Stella Benson?
I am curious to hear other reactions to this story.

Patricia

Patricia A. Teter
PTeter(at)Getty.edu

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 16:12:29 -0800
From: Patricia Teter <PTeter(at)getty.edu>
Subject: Re: The Irish Zorro

Bob C. wrote: <<When I was a kid--a long time ago--I was a faithful
watcher of Walt Disney's "Zorro." Zorro was played by Guy Williams,
who looked every inch the son of a Spanish grandee--dark, masculine,
handsome; and had just enough of a lilt in his voice that one might
swear that he had been brought up in old Spain.

<<Now an Italian historian claims to have discovered that that lilt
probably should have been Irish.  Here, from the _Times_ of London
is a story about Fabio Troncarelli's researches into the character
who (more than likely) inspired the Zorro legend.>>>


Sheesh! thanks for bursting the bubble!  Red hair and beard???
Not MY Zorro! <grin>

Patricia    (off to play swashbuckler with the REAL Zorro!)

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 19:12:46 -0500
From: "James E. Kearman" <jkearman(at)gate.net>
Subject: Desert Islander

A disturbing story, indeed. A Russian deserter from the French Foreign
Legion, who doesn't want to be 'generalized.' An English gentleman who, at
great risk and difficulty, tries to transport the deserter to a place where
he can have his leg amputated. Meanwhile the Boxer Rebellion (?) rages in
the background. Is there some message about Colonialism? Constantine (an
allusion to the emperor who brought Christianity into the Roman Empire,
another great revolution?) is concerned lest he be ill thought of by the
Englishman.

I think I see the allusions but the analysis eludes me.

Cheers,

Jim

- ----------------------------------------
Jim Kearman
mailto:jkearman(at)iname.com
http://www.gate.net/~jkearman

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 17:39:24 -0800
From: "Robert T. Eldridge" <rfx(at)earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: This week's author

Patricia Teter wrote:
>
> Bob C., thank you for the Stella Benson biographical
> information.  After reading this week's story, I was
> very curious about Benson and her odd little tale.
> The location and characters now make sense,
> but I am still contemplating the disturbing ending.
>
> Has anyone read any other piece by Stella Benson?
> I am curious to hear other reactions to this story.
>
> Patricia
>
> Patricia A. Teter
> PTeter(at)Getty.edu

Patricia, et. al:

 I seem to be out of the loop on this Benson story. When I go to
Gaslight's home page, and search Current Reading Schedule, it only goes
up through January, and the first installment of _Haunted Lives_ by Le
Fanu. Which story are we supposed to be reading?

 I do know a couple of things about the author, or her work, rather.
"The Man Who Missed the Bus" is a short story with some supernatural
content, of an allegorical nature. I read it some time ago, and was not
too taken with it. (It was published in the Elkin Mathews series of
Woburn Books - a series that later included Algernon Blackwood's "Full
Circle.") Another short story of hers, "The Awakening," is supposedly
supernatural. Her main contribution to the weird/fantasy/supernatural
genre, though, is her novel, _Living Alone_, which Bleiler (in _The
Guide to Supernatural Fiction_) describes as an account of "everyday
events during World War I transmuted by 'magic,' told in an
idiosyncratic way." This looked quite interesting to me, judging from
the first few pages.

 Having glanced now through my copy of Stella Benson's _Collected Short
Stories_, I see now that we're reading "The Desert Islander," but I
still don't understand where the electronic version of the text is to be
found.

 Meanwhile, I look forward to reading this Benson story. She sounds like
quite an adventurous woman.


    Bob Eldridge

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 22:34:32 -0500
From: "S.T. Karnick" <skarnick(at)INDY.NET>
Subject: Re: This week's author

Robert Eldridge wrote, in part,

>Patricia Teter wrote:
>>
>> Bob C., thank you for the Stella Benson biographical
>> information.  After reading this week's story, I was
>> very curious about Benson and her odd little tale.
>> The location and characters now make sense,
>> but I am still contemplating the disturbing ending.


> I seem to be out of the loop on this Benson story. When I go to
>Gaslight's home page, and search Current Reading Schedule, it only goes
>up through January, and the first installment of _Haunted Lives_ by Le
>Fanu. Which story are we supposed to be reading?


Same here.  I never got the message alluded to earlier about Zorro -- which
I would like to have seen -- and when I go to the website the schedule only
goes through January. I seem to be having the same problem some of us had a
while ago, receiving only some of the messages.

Best w's,

S.T. Karnick

===0===



Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 18:23:55 -0800
From: "Robert T. Eldridge" <rfx(at)earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Bob Eldridge intro

Thanks to Bob Champ, Patricia Teeter, and Susan Demers for their
thoughtful responses to my posting, (and to those of you who may have
felt some response without putting it into words). A few re-responses:

> I thought that I would take this opportunity to point out that the 1903
> edition of _The Hashish Eater_ has a cover illustration by Aubrey
> Beardsley.

This is the edition I have. The title page and frontis are by Beardsley.
I'd be happy to scan them and post them (if I can figure out how) if
anyone wants to see them.

> I am also going to try finding Ludlow?s  Poesque story, "A Strange
> Acquaintance of Mine." This tale is set in New Orleans during a
> fever epidemic.
>

Sounds good. I'll look forward to it.

> Yes, very often I will read a story, and value it, chiefly because of a
> window that it opens up onto another time.

One of the reasons I gravitate to the Gaslight period as a reader is
because I think it was a golden age of literature in some ways. Literacy
was widespread; and literature (meaning any and all printed material
designed for other than purely utilitarian ends, like a phone book) was
the dominant art form, without comptetion from the electric and
electronic media that would take over later in the twentieth century.
Being the dominant form, it attracted the best minds to it both as
producers and as consumers - and the best producers of a form are as
nothing without a good audience. In addition, after about 1885, with the
introduction of the Linotype machine, and the subsequent lowered costs
of printing, it flourished all the more as a mass medium. The situation
of literature in the Victorian and Edwardian period puts me in mind of
the situation of drama in the Elizabethan, which likewise was the
dominant form, with great appeal for both masses and elite. I think it's
for very good reasons that anyone who loves books and what they contain
should feel nostalgia for the gaslight era. The printed word ruled in a
way that it never had, and never has since.

> I believe most Gaslight members would agree with your last statement.
> My own view is that stories are often quite sophisticated and rise to
> the level of  (sometimes) exquisite art.  On the other hand, we
> see tales that we realize are not of very high quality artistically,
> though it may have elements that intrigue us.  No one, I believe, is bound
> to like only the best--I know that I like many things that are not
> particularly good and shun others that I am well aware are superior.
> (Taste doesn?talways equal aesthetic value.)

My hunch about what's going on here, in part, at least, is that, the
more one explores and comes to know a particular medium or genre, the
more one is able to find value in the second and third ranks of its
work. I think I know the difference between great and good work in
fiction, but I don't expect everything I read to be great. The good has
value too; and sometimes a story may have only one or two good features,
but is to be cherished just the same for whatever it contributes to the
living stream of our language.

I enjoyed the stories that Susan and Deborah related about the different
paths that reading takes as it enters into the lives of those who come
to love it. I bet that everyone has a good story about this.



  Bob Eldridge


"Lege, lege; aliquid haerebit."

------------------------------

End of Gaslight Digest V1 #39
*****************************