It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single vampire of good fortune must be in want of a real estate agent.
“Nothing is beneath the notice of my esteemed patron, Lord Dracula. Why, it was him that told me to find a bride among my fair cousins, and to bring them to him!”
“What is his name?“
“Bingley.”
“Is he married or single?“
“Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of only nine and twenty, with an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. What a fine thing for our girls!”
Sure, you could pay to read the New York Times, or take an extra minute out of your day to blow through their paywall, but for free[*] you could be getting the good information about John Stuart Mill that was just dropped at johnpistelli.com. There’s plenty of nuance in his almost legalistic prose, I promise you, as he heroically tried to synthesize the Enlightenment with Romanticism. An excerpt from my new essay:
How is the infrastructure of free speech to be erected and sustained? Through a proper education, one in which students are allowed to hear a diversity of views from those who hold them. Citing precedents in intellectual history from the Platonic dialogues (in which philosophy is conducted as an argument between multiple personae) to the legal practice of Cicero (who learned the opposing counsel’s case better than his own) to the process of Catholic canonization (which invites the “devil’s advocate” to speak against the candidate for sainthood), Mill argues that students must be prepared to defend their own positions against counterarguments they themselves are able to reconstruct from the inside: “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” Otherwise, people will hold even their own opinions lazily, unfeelingly, and without really knowing why—a state of intellectual torpor that bodes ill for the polity.
Precisely the situation in which once-august and now-bathetic institutions like the Times sadly find themselves.
I don’t even know why I started reading or rereading On Liberty the other day, nor do I remember if I’d ever read the whole thing before or just excerpts in college. I do remember reading all of The Subjection of Women in a Western Civ class, and then answering a final essay exam question in the same class where I was invited to imagine and write out a debate between Mill and Hitler. I recall having some fun with the stage directions: “Mill lifts both eyebrows in startled alarm” and the like. The professor would no doubt be fired today.
Anyway, I think I went back to Mill because George Bernard Shaw had me wanting to revisit the Victorian sages (and indeed to expand my knowledge of some of them beyond the Norton Anthology)—nothing to do with the news. But current hegemonic left-liberalism has of course abandoned Mill’s liberal ideal of free speech without even seeming to understand its rationale—they appear as well to be in the process of abandoning any theory of mind whatever, ironically returning to a fully infantile state—so On Liberty remains pertinent.
Two things I didn’t get to discuss in my essay since I try to keep these things short enough for Goodreads:
1. Mill was a Malthusian who thought the state should seize control of breeding. He disfavored “a woman’s right to choose,” to use an obsolete phrase from my youth, to opposite effect as does the religious right today: he might not outlaw but mandate abortion, for generally eugenic reasons. This seems to me inconsistent with the broad principles of On Liberty and premised on a flawed and zero-sum idea of humanity’s relationship to nature and economics.
2. I quoted but did not elaborate on Mill’s beguiling sentence, “It may be better to be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles than either.” I first encountered it before I ever read any Mill at all as the epigraph to James Wood’s paralyzingly eloquent essay against Thomas More, “A Man for One Season.” Wood’s idea is that More was no better than Knox, a religious sectarian, and therefore not a fit Periclean hero for a liberal, secular society. But is it really better to be John Knox than Alcibiades? It’s a case of two extremes, an unenviable choice. I confess I haven’t read any Thucydides since my first year of college, but I do recollect that Athens’s golden boy (and Socrates’s boy-toy) was an unreliable man, to say the least. Still, would I want to found Scottish Presbyterianism or hang out with Socrates? I swing sexually the other direction, but Al seems to have enjoyed primarily female company anyway, among all his wild and dangerous political intrigues. Wherever you come down, it’s certainly a thought-provoking sentence.
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[*] While I have been “playing real good for free,” like the “one-man band by the quick-lunch stand” in the Joni-Mitchell-via-Lana-del-Rey ballad, if you like it and if you’re able, you might please send moneyorbuy a book to keep the operations ongoing. Thank you!
Something I would love to see: A sequel to Dracula that takes decades place after Dracula’s demise in which a middle aged Jonathan and Mina work to defeat the Brides who are wreaking havoc in the British countryside.
‘He held the watch a moment longer before setting it on the wooden chair by the bed, the one that served as a table for collars and cufflinks. The gold caught the ember-light and shone the colour of a human voice.’
- The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley.
I love antique books. “The Sorrows of Satan” by Marie Corelli was one the world’s first bestsellers in 1895. Critics hated it but the public ate it up due to its prosaic style. In its day, the book even outsold Dickens and Conan-Doyle. I can’t help but think it’s widely unknown today because the author was a woman.
Fun fact: the name Mavis was invented for and popularised by this book. Many critics view the character Mavis Clare as a surrogate for the author, Marie Corelli.
An Australian Girl was written by the Australian author Catherine Martin and was published in 1890. This is the story of Stella. A true Australian girl born and raised in Australia. She is a new woman of Australia. Independent. Physically healthy, enjoying exploring the wild landscape around her. Intellectual with a love of learning and reading. Craving discourse with an equally intellectual companion. At the beginning of the novel Stella keeps trying to reject the marriage proposals of her friend since childhood, Ted. She seems quite cynical of the marriage institution and while she is fond of Ted, they are not intellectual equals and she does not love him. Then unexpectedly she falls in love with a man named Anselm. They start off as having a ‘true friendship. He is her intellectual equal and she can’t help falling in love with him. It seems like Stella has found the perfect match, but then deception and the intervention of a desperate and greedy woman changes the course of Stella’s story.
Storyline:
I so enjoyed this novel, there were so many things packed in here. First of all the writing! Oh my the writing was gorgeous and passionate. The parts following Stella were beautiful in particular and the description of the natural landscape was off the charts fantastic. In part this was a wonderful novel about Australia as it was soon to become a country in 1901 and not just a bunch of colonies. Not only is the natural beauty of Australia commented on, but all the different people and experiences. The aboriginals are touched on, the people exploring the bush in search of gold and what not. The people trying to make a living off of sheep farming. The society in the urban center of Melbourne. The foreigners coming to Australia with fresh eyes. The youth who were born and raised in Australia like Stella and Ted. On the other hand this was a novel about Stella, this new woman of Australia trying to find a new place for herself and struggling against Victorian ideals. The institution of marriage is criticized and Stella questions the ideals of marriage and love. Marriage never goes well in this book. Stella ends up marrying the wrong man. You hear stories about her sister’s and friend’s marriages turning out to be failures. Ted’s sister Laurette’s marriage is quite horrible as she is married to a man who gambles away their money and has affairs. It’s a loveless marriage that threatens to leave Laurette in ruin, so she takes actions that end up making her the villain of the novel. Even with all that criticism of marriage, Stella finds love. A love based in friendship and mental equality. These seem to be the ideals for the best type of partnership that the author it seems found lacking in most marriages. Weirdly enough the ending of the novel goes in a strange direction , away from Stella’s desires. Honestly I loved everything about the novel except the ending. It does not end so called happily and Stella does not follow her desires. I almost saw it in a sense of her not being able to break away from the old world and the old traditions as much as she’d like. The novel ends in England ( the old world) and with Stella falling back on religion. It’s like she’s pulled back into the old a bit and can’t quite break free from the old ideals and moral code enough to be truly independent and follow her own heart.
Setting:
The setting of An Australian Girl was one of my all time favorite settings I’ve read about in awhile. It’s mostly set in Australia of course, although near the end it’s set for a bit in Berlin, Germany and in London, England. Australia’s natural beauty was described with such passion. Such fantastic descriptions that really brought it to life. There were so many I loved: the Mallee Scrub where her family had a house, her family’s garden and surrounding views in Adelaide, other parts of the bush, a place called The Wicked Wood, the Peeloo Plain that with all it’s waving grasses looked like an ocean, her brother’s house and surrounding gardens with trees native to Australia and also from all over the world and horseback rides on the beach. This world was described to be one of splendor, melancholy, beauty, mystery and a kind of sacred loneliness.
Characters:
Stella was a fantastic character. She was so passionate, so smart and so independent. Such a love for her native Australia. I loved seeing her develop. When she was more ‘innocent’ however is when I liked her the best. She seemed so content to be with herself and to read and experience the natural world. She has one of those sensitive temperaments though, which can be so alive to the beauty of the world, but whom tragedy touches deeply. Near the end of the novel her mental anguish wracks her nervous system and also weakens her body. I loved Anselm. I so badly wanted that relationship to work out. I loved how their love was based on a deep friendship that grew because they could share so much intellectually. Such a beautiful relationship dynamic. It was hard to dislike Ted too much though because he seemed so good natured and like he cared so much for Stella. He just doesn’t understand her depth and isn’t her equal mentally. Laurette I disliked as the villain she was. So selfish. Yet, she was the character the most trapped and constrained. Lots of little interesting side characters and stories as the novel went on, which I thought added to the picture of Australia in particular.
Did I Like It?:
I loved this novel! Definitely a hidden gem. I know the ending wasn’t one I wanted or agreed with, but I still loved the bulk of it so thoroughly. A wonderful Australian classic and a wonderful classic in general. I want to check out more by this author!
Do I Recommend it?:
Yes very highly! This book currently is out of print, although they reprinted it in the 90’s and I found it easy to get a hold of a copy. I feel like this is such a gem of a book though that I really would like to see gain a readership again. It is a fabulous book by a female author in the Victorian period for one. Most of all it is an Australian classic that really captures what it meant to be Australian at the time. It should not be forgotten and should be valued as a wonderful work of Australian literature and a great classic of it’s time by a female author.
Ah, Victorian London, a place of technology and squalor, of progress, and a form of civilized barbarism. A place of high class nobles… and ruthless backstreet brawling. A place where people of all walks of life found themselves, and a place where all manner of cultures could be found. Indeed, there is much to be found here in London.
