Helen With The High Hand; An Idyllic Diversion Book

HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND AN IDYLLIC DIVERSION - 1912 - CONTENTS CHAP. I v111 IX X XI XI1 XI11 XIV xv XVI XVI I XvIrr S13 BEGINNING OF THE IDYLL AN AFFAIR OF THE SEVENIIKS MARRYING OFF A MOTHER INVITATION TO TEA . . A SALUTATION . . MRS. BUTTS DEPARTURE . THE NEW COOK . . OMELETTE . A GREAT CHANGE . A CALL . ANOTHER CALL BREAKFAST . THE WORLD . SONG, SCENE AND DANCE. THE GIFT. . THE HALL AND ITS RESULT . DESCENDANTS OF hIXCHIAVEI. LI CHICANE IAGE i XXI XXIII XXIV THE FLITTING . SHIP AND OCEAN . COSFESSIONL4TJ . NOCTUIINLIL . SEEISG A LrZDY HOJII GIII1, ISH CONFIDENCES . JJIF, CONCEliT . UNKNOTTING LlhI KNOTLINC . PAGE HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND CHAPTER I BEGINNING OF THE IDYLL IN the Five Towns human nature is re ported to be so hard that you can break stones on it. Yet sometimes it softens, and then we have one of our rare idylls of which we are very proud, while pretending not to be. The soft and delicate South would pos sibly not esteem highly our idylls, as such. Nevertheless they are our idylls, idyllic for us, and reminding us, by certain symptoms, that though we never cry there is concealed somewhere within our bodies a fount of happy tears. The town park is an idyll in the otherwise prosaic municipal history of the Borough of Bursley, which previously had never got nearer to romance than a Turkish bath. It was once waste ground covered with horrible rubbish-heaps, and made dangerous by the imperf ectly-protected shafts of disused coalpits. Now you enter it by emblazoned gates it is surrounded by elegant railings fountains and cascades babble in it wild-fowl from far countries roost in it, on trees with long names tea is served in it brass bands make music on its terraces, and on its highest terrace town councillors play bowls on billiard-table greens while casting proud glances on the houses of thirty thousand people spread out under the sweet influence of the gold angel that tops the Town Hall spire. The other four towns are apt to ridicule that gold angel, which for exactly fifty years has guarded the borough and only been regilded twice. But ask the plumber who last had the fearsome job of regilding it whether it is a gold angel to be despised, and-you will see The other four towns are also apt to point to their own parks when Bursley mentions its park especially Turnhill, smallest and most conceited of the Five but let them show a park whose natural situation equals that of Bursleys park. You may tell me that the terra-cotta constructions within it carry ugli- ness beyond a joke you may tell me that in spite of the parks vaunted situation nothing can be seen from it save the chimneys and kilns of earthenware manufadtories, the scaffoldings of pitheads, the ample dome of the rate-collectors offices, the railway, minarets of nonconformity, sundry undulating square miles of monotonous house-roofs, the long scarves of black smoke which add such interest to the sky-of the Five Towns-and, of course, the gold angel. But I tell you that before the days of the park lovers had no place to walk in but the cemetery not the ancient churchyard of St. Lukes the rector would like to catch them at it -the borough cemetery One generation was forced to make love over the tombs of another-and such tombs l-before the days of the park. That is the sufficient answer to any criticism of the park. The highest terrace of the park is a splendid expanse of gravel, ornamented with flower-beds...Read More