the origins of biblical narrative, but staunch in his own mystical Breton brand of Christianity. His mother, Emilie, was an older sister of the republican and anticlerical historian, also a folklore enthusiast, Raoul de Kercoz, who still maintained the family manor of Kernemet. In 1828 Isidore married Miss Arabel Gumpert, daughter of Canon Rupert Gumpert of St Paul’s, whose firm religious faith was a powerful steadying influence on Christabel’s childhood. There were two daughters of the marriage, Sophie, born in 1830, who became the wife of Sir George Bailey, of Seal Close, in the Lincolnshire Wolds, and Christabel, born in 1825, who lived with her parents until in 1853 a small independence, left her by a maiden aunt, Antoinette de Kercoz, enabled her to set up house in Richmond in Surrey, with a young woman friend whom she had met at a lecture of Ruskin’s.
Miss Blanche Glover, like Christabel, had artistic ambitions,and painted large canvases in oil, none of which have survived, as well as carving the skilful and mysterious wood engravings which illustrate Christabel’s delightful, if slightly disquieting,
Tales for Innocents
, and
Tales Told in November
, and her religious lyrics,
Orisons
. It is believed to be Miss Glover who first encouraged Christabel to embark on the grandiose and obscure epic poem,
The Fairy Melusina, a
retelling of the old tale of the magical half-woman, half-snake. The rifts of
The Fairy Melusina
are heavily overloaded with ore; during the Pre-Raphaelite Period it was admired by certain critics, including Swinburne, who called it, “a quiet, muscular serpent of a tale, with more vigour and venom than is at all usual in the efforts of the female pen, but without narrative thrust; rather, as was Coleridge’s Serpent who figured the Imagination, with its tail stuffed in its own mouth.” It is now deservedly forgotten. Christabel’s reputation, modest but secure, rests on the restrained and delicate lyrics, products of a fine sensibility, a somewhat sombre temperament, and a troubled but steadfast Christian faith.
Miss Glover was unfortunately drowned in the Thames in 1861. The death seems to have had a distressing effect on Christabel, who returned eventually to her family, living with her sister Sophie for the rest of her quiet and uneventful life. After
Melusina
she appears to have written no more poetry, and retreated further and further into voluntary silence. She died in 1890 aged sixty-five.
Veronica Honiton’s comments on Christabel’s poetry concentrated sweetly on her “domestic mysticism,” which she compared to George Herbert’s celebration of the servant who “sweeps a room as for Thy laws.”
I like things clean about me
Starched and gophered frill
What is done exactly
Cannot be done ill
The house is ready spotless
Waiting for the Guest
Who will see our white linen
At its very best
Who will take it and fold it
And lay us to rest.
Thirty years later the feminists saw Christabel LaMotte as distraught and enraged. They wrote on “Ariachne’s Broken Woof: Art as Discarded Spinning in the Poems of LaMotte.” Or “Melusina and the Daemonic Double: Good Mother, Bad Serpent.” “A Docile Rage: Christabel LaMotte’s Ambivalent Domesticity.” “White Gloves: Blanche Glover: Occluded Lesbian sexuality in LaMotte.” There was an essay by Maud Bailey herself on “Melusina, Builder of Cities: A Subversive Female Cosmogony.” Roland knew he should tackle this piece first, but was inhibited by its formidable length and density. He started “Ariachne’s Broken Woof,” which elegantly dissected one of Christabel’s insect poems, of which there were apparently many.
From so blotched and cramped a creature
Painfully teased out
With ugly fingers, filaments of wonder
Bright snares about
Lost buzzing things, an order fine and bright
Geometry threading water, catching light.
It was hard to concentrate. The Midlands went flatly past, a biscuit factory, a metal
Miss Blanche Glover, like Christabel, had artistic ambitions,and painted large canvases in oil, none of which have survived, as well as carving the skilful and mysterious wood engravings which illustrate Christabel’s delightful, if slightly disquieting,
Tales for Innocents
, and
Tales Told in November
, and her religious lyrics,
Orisons
. It is believed to be Miss Glover who first encouraged Christabel to embark on the grandiose and obscure epic poem,
The Fairy Melusina, a
retelling of the old tale of the magical half-woman, half-snake. The rifts of
The Fairy Melusina
are heavily overloaded with ore; during the Pre-Raphaelite Period it was admired by certain critics, including Swinburne, who called it, “a quiet, muscular serpent of a tale, with more vigour and venom than is at all usual in the efforts of the female pen, but without narrative thrust; rather, as was Coleridge’s Serpent who figured the Imagination, with its tail stuffed in its own mouth.” It is now deservedly forgotten. Christabel’s reputation, modest but secure, rests on the restrained and delicate lyrics, products of a fine sensibility, a somewhat sombre temperament, and a troubled but steadfast Christian faith.
Miss Glover was unfortunately drowned in the Thames in 1861. The death seems to have had a distressing effect on Christabel, who returned eventually to her family, living with her sister Sophie for the rest of her quiet and uneventful life. After
Melusina
she appears to have written no more poetry, and retreated further and further into voluntary silence. She died in 1890 aged sixty-five.
Veronica Honiton’s comments on Christabel’s poetry concentrated sweetly on her “domestic mysticism,” which she compared to George Herbert’s celebration of the servant who “sweeps a room as for Thy laws.”
I like things clean about me
Starched and gophered frill
What is done exactly
Cannot be done ill
The house is ready spotless
Waiting for the Guest
Who will see our white linen
At its very best
Who will take it and fold it
And lay us to rest.
Thirty years later the feminists saw Christabel LaMotte as distraught and enraged. They wrote on “Ariachne’s Broken Woof: Art as Discarded Spinning in the Poems of LaMotte.” Or “Melusina and the Daemonic Double: Good Mother, Bad Serpent.” “A Docile Rage: Christabel LaMotte’s Ambivalent Domesticity.” “White Gloves: Blanche Glover: Occluded Lesbian sexuality in LaMotte.” There was an essay by Maud Bailey herself on “Melusina, Builder of Cities: A Subversive Female Cosmogony.” Roland knew he should tackle this piece first, but was inhibited by its formidable length and density. He started “Ariachne’s Broken Woof,” which elegantly dissected one of Christabel’s insect poems, of which there were apparently many.
From so blotched and cramped a creature
Painfully teased out
With ugly fingers, filaments of wonder
Bright snares about
Lost buzzing things, an order fine and bright
Geometry threading water, catching light.
It was hard to concentrate. The Midlands went flatly past, a biscuit factory, a metal
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