Penshurst, the great hall
We will grieve not, rather find/Strength in what remains behind/if but once we have been strong — Wordsworth
How do I miss you? let me count the ways
the lady poet once counted so well,
I miss you when I turn round and you’re not
there. I miss your talk, your sense of humor,
how you turned the world off.
Quiet need found rest and peace
I love you for all you were,
all you did for me and can no longer
loved you utterly unconditionally too.
So you loved me.
But this is how I feel when my fragile sense
of security is not jeopardized
Put another way than complacency:
without you without your confidence
(whence people acquire this I know not)
I am at a loss to act.
When we were first told that the cancer had spread to his liver and then that his condition was hopeless, I remember thinking I lost my bet. Selfish of me to think that but it went through my mind. Strength now is to see my bet was realistically based on who I am and was upon meeting him, where I came from, and where he did and what he was, and what were our possibilities and choices. The odds were against us and we did better with our dice than the polluted world’s bookie would have allowed. Now I have to live on within these possibilities, on what he has left me, much diminished because without him. So I didn’t lose it. Its effects just did not last as long as I — he too — hoped. It was all I had, all that came my way and while he lived, we covered for one another. I was his honorary duchess and he was my admiral — our little joke at ourselves. But they had real efficacy to protect our self-esteem while we both lived.
A friend is sending me a copy of the 1970s film adaptation of Love for Lydia; she got a region 2 version and can’t play it. I look forward to when it comes and watching it.
I’ve begun my first week of Literature of the Country House, and as far as it went (it’s not taxing at all, an hour and 3/4s of videos and texts to read), it was good. I then read the whole of Jonson’s “To Penhurst” for the first time in years and remember how in 1976 (his father was dying of cancer) the admiral (though I didn’t call him that then) and I visited England and spent a day at Penshurst and a guide showed us around the house and we saw the great hall — in January it was and we walked around the grounds. I can hope to read Mark Girouard’s Life in the English Country House this summer.
Jim liked to listen to Elgar, especially The Enigma Variations
Sylvia
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
P.S. To all those who read this blog and in whom it arouses contempt, distaste, a shudder, scorn, the fervent thought oh I’ll never be like this, oh she deserves what she is, for it is her fault (whatever your reasoning), pray go away. Don’t read it any more. Unfollow, unsubscribe, unfriend.
What a lovely poem! Again, I am so sorry about your grief, but I agree you didn’t lose your bet. All those lovely memories, and a close friendship and marriage. Cancer is terrible.
“A lovely post. Having just walked the gardens in Penshurst in spring, I agree it can be an inspirational place. I think gardens soothe your soul at times.” Malvina
From Clare:
“I loved the poem, and yes it seems that Penshurst is different. I am not sure why. However, I have visited and it is a 14th century manor house. It came to the Sidney family in 1552, and is still owned by the same family. I think that it differs from the later “stately homes” in that it was earlier and more rustic in style and was really a centre of medieval power and hence at the centre of agricultural life. It was utilitarian, rather than a style and status statement. I have visited it several times and it is a comfortable place. The current Viscount D’Lisle is the son of the Viscount who was President of the British Heart Foundation, for which I worked. I met him several times he was a nice man, although a typical British aristocrat. He was a chatty man and always interested in the staff at BHF.
However, I disapprove of the system where an accident of birth makes one at the top of the social system. Where being of a certain family means that you inherit wealth, lands and have the means to employ lots of servants. My grandmother was a lady’s maid and suffered abuse. It was a lousy system. Frankly, we owe the aristocratic families for keeping these wonderful estates and houses going, but I am glad that most are now in public ownership, although Penshurst is different in that too.”
Even the nice clothes of servants were often hand me downs from the wealthy. The land workers were often very poor. In the SW of England, bread riots in Exeter (1854) we’re occasioned by rural poverty.
http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/exeter-bread-riots-1854.html
1846 and 1847 were terrible years in Devon; there were wide-spread crop failures which caused great want and distress among the poor. In May 1846, there was a serious bread riot at Exeter, followed by others at Exmouth, Dawlish, Okehampton, Cullompton, Crediton and Tiverton. By May 17th, the unrest had spread to Torquay:
See:
http://www.devonheritage.org/stentiford/Issue_41/Article2/5May2art1.htm
During these times many farm workers were turned off from employment during the winter and were turned out of their “tied” cottages.
In response to Clare, this kind of information is why doing local history and really getting to the realities of what happened matters so much. What do we mean when we say we are discussing history and history turns out to be what powerful people do, who killed or beat out who, what the rich were wearing and doing …
The Sheffield course does not mean to do that, but it’s almost inevitable that until the 18th century (and beyond) most written literature that was printed, preserved is from the upper class standpoint.
E.M.