Adventsläsning

LET US BE GOOD TO OURSELVES

Most of us are not. We remember and tell of every slip we have made. If we forget to mail a letter, keep an appointment, deliver a message, we spread the news, giving all our friends the impression that we are not reliable, forgetting that the world takes us at our own valuation.

We have stayed out late at parties, because we hadn't the nerve to break away, and then have been so tired the next morning we had not time for the bath and careful dressing which would have fortified us for the day's happenings, but instead had to dash out for the 8:20 car with the sense of guilt that comes with soiled cuffs and an unwashed skin.

We are so busy and concerned with our own and other people's affairs we have not time to choose our food wisely, and so we eat what is handiest and acquire indigestion and gloom and a sense of impending disaster. We know that whipped cream does not agree with us, but when we go out to a luncheon and it is there on the salad, satiny-white and billowy, we eat it, because we do not want to appear rude. We haven't time to walk, to read, to relax, nor to take the hair treatments we know we should have. There are so many parties and bridges, sometimes we feel we can't face another one, but we do—poor, over-worked slaves that we are!

We haven't even the grace to let ourselves forget the unpleasant happenings of life. When someone slights us, we feel so badly over it we simply have to tell someone, and so write a full account of it to our friends, thereby engraving the whole matter on the tables of our memory; and then we grieve over it, and stupidly say we wish we could forget it! When we lie awake at night, we torment ourselves by picturing how wretched we will feel the next day, instead of turning on the light and pleasantly reading the story we had intended to read the day before.

We are clever people, efficient and high-powered, but in our zeal to get things done we are forgetting the simple art of living.

Let us make a resolve—that we will begin to-day to relax, and loiter, and potter around, and be lazy if we feel like it once in a while, and take time to meditate, and watch the sun go down behind the hill.

Let us be good to ourselves.

från från "Be Good to Yourself. A Book of Short Stories", från 1930,  av Nellie Letitia McClung.

Inseparables. c1900. 

Florence Fuller

Och det är precis det jag är — snäll mot mig själv alltså. Jag såsar runt i min egen takt, tittar ut på det kalla vinterlandskapet, och läser när jag vill — vad jag vill, och precis så länge jag vill.
Den senaste novellsamlingen jag ägnat mig åt är den kanadensiska författaren Nellie Letitia McClungs bok "Be Good to Yourself". En intressant kvinnosakskvinna som kämpade för kvinnors rösträtt — och som dessutom skrev läsvärda noveller och romaner.
Låter hennes namn bekant? Kanske för att jag skrev om henne i den senaste novellutmaningen.

Cats — novellutmaningen

39. Läs en novell med en huvudperson som har ett husdjur —  "Cats", ur novellsamlingen ""Be Good to Yourself. A Book of Short Stories" (1930), av Nellie McClung (en spännande och intressant bekantskap).

I mean real cats, the furry ones who lie before the fire or sit in windows and brighten the world with their cosy pleasant ways. I like them because they are so composed and self-sufficient and entirely right in their own eyes; so sure of themselves and the justice of their cause that they never need to repent and are never sorry for anything they have ever done; never want to tell you their troubles and never have any desire to do better. I like them but I have no illusions about them. I like best of all the common cats, the alley breed, who think a family tree is the thing you run up when the airedale is in pursuit! 

The End of the Story

Marcus Stone

Så inleder Nellie McClung sin novell "Cats", från 1930. Som så ofta, både i levande livet och i böcker, så så bara hampar det sig så att bokens jag, och katten Annie Gray råkar varandra — eller hade Annie planerat det? 

About five years ago a little cat just came to us. She walked in with the calm assurance of a paid-in-advance roomer. She was a square-jawed, blunt little cat without one distinguishing feature except her air of confidence. She came in at the front door and walked through to the kitchen and I gathered from her air of self-possession that the Billeting Committee or the Employment Bureau or some other authoritative body had given her our address and asked her to call; and just for a moment I wondered if I had put in a requisition somewhere for a cat. To relieve the embarrassment of the moment, which, however, was all on my side, I offered her a saucer of milk, which she accepted graciously and without haste; and then came and sat on my knee and gave me a careful scrutiny which ended in her jocosely biting my hand and I knew then that all was settled and she considered that my application had been accepted.

Det är inte en berättelse som får mig att skratta högt — men jag läser den småspinnande, och med ett leende på läpparna.
En av mina självpåtagna begränsningar i den här utmaningen, är att inte läsa två noveller av samma författare — jag vill ju vidga mina vyer! Men det skulle inte vara svårt att använda många av Nellies noveller i novellutmaningen, de är ju så bra!

Läs om novellutmaningen hos "Ugglan & boken".

Nellie Letitia McClung — novellutmaningen

Nellie McClung

Det tog en stund innan jag lyckades hitta en kalender med numrerade veckor, så att jag visste när vecka 36 inträffade. Veckan då novellutmaningen tar sin början.

Nu vet jag, och tänkte att det är lika bra att jag lägger mig i startgroparna (fast en grop räcker väl?), så jag har börjat välja ut lämpliga noveller. I början, när många noveller passar in under många temata, ligger svårigheten i att välja vilket tema jag ska välja — för jag vet ju att på slutet kommer jag att irritera mig över att jag redan använt en rubrik, som jag skulle behöva. 

Nu har jag börjat läsa noveller och lyrik av den intressanta kanadensiska författaren, kvinnosakskvinnan och reformatorn Nellie Letitia McClung (1873 - 1951). Flera av hennes böcker hittar du hos Gutenberg.

Jag presenterar mitt val av novell i nästa vecka, men här kommer en av hennes verser från boken "Be Good to Yourself. A Book of Short Stories" (1930).

THE ROARIN' GAME

Curling is a splendid sport for women. Not only does it provide healthful exercise, opportunities for self-control, and good sportsmanship, but being primarily a man's sport, it makes for better understanding between men and women. A man can understand how his wife may be late in getting home from a curling game much easier than if she has been at a missionary meeting.

MAGIC

She parks her baby with a friend,

She piles her dishes in the sink,

Pulls on her sweater, grabs her broom,

And hurries over to the rink.

She would have had her dishes done,

But she was drawn to curl at one.

She wins her game—and so is drawn

To curl again at half-past three;

This is a bear-cat of a game

Against an ancient enemy.

When she comes out, the lamps gleam high,

Like stars against the dull, gray sky.

Now by all things that we have learned

Of husbands and their ways,

This woman's man will angry be,

And grievous trouble raise

When he comes home, at close of day,

And finds his dear wife—far away.

He goes and brings his offspring home,

He lights the kitchen fire,

He sets the supper on to cook;

No trace of slumbering ire;

But knowing what we do of life

We tremble for the erring wife!

At half-past six her step is heard,

Her voice is full of joy:

"O Bill!—I didn't do a thing

To Mrs. Pomeroy!

I took her out with my last stone,

And we were one up coming home."

And as he stirred the baby's food

He said, "I'm glad you lammed her good!"