Charles Burton Barber, The Broken String
Astute solvers will recall that nine weeks ago I posted a puzzle called “Beaten Down.” This is what the critics call a “recurring motif.”
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Novel 149: Victoria Baker, Half-a-Dozen Daughters (1871)
Charles Edward Perugini, Playing at Work
A gentleman loses his competence in foolish speculations and tries to support his six daughters by running a chemist's shop in Yorkshire.
Victoria Baker (1838-1913) wrote five novels between 1864 and 1894 under the pseudonym J. Masterman. This one is a lively treatment of several common Victorian themes.
“Without being exactly a work of genius, this is a very pleasant, wholesome novel, showing considerable descriptive power, and introducing us to some very agreeable and amiable characters. The author writes in a fresh, lively style, and his dialogue is singularly crisp and natural. He has a keen sense of humour, and at times is unaffectedly pathetic.” Illustrated Review, November, 1871
“In tracing the quiet annals of this interesting family the reader will find many domestic pictures full of homeliness and beauty. The characters are drawn with individuality and distinctness, the narrative is easy, and the episodes are life-like and natural.” Morning Post, November 20, 1871
“Half-a-Dozen Daughters is one of those healthy, natural books which remind one of a breezy day in the country.” Saturday Review, December 16, 1871
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Crossword 148: Eye Movement
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Venus Verticordia
This is a crossword version of one of those eerie paintings the eyes of which follow you around wherever you go.
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A crossword of mine will appear Thursday, September 24, in Universal Crossword.
Novel 148: Percy White, Andria (1896)
George Frederick Watts, Lady Dalrymple
A thoughtful and beautiful young lady is wooed by a painter, a rich young man, and (catastrophically) a philosopher.
Here is another engaging social comedy—or tragicomedy—by White (see Novel 075).
One character is “a finished picture and a masterpiece. . . . one of the most brilliantly executed portraits in modern fiction.” Pall Mall Gazette, December 2, 1896
“A clever novel, subtle and discriminating in its character-drawing, containing at least one remarkable portrait, and full of excellent things that make it worth reading.” The Standard, January 1, 1897.
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Crossword 147: International Misunderstanding
John Bagnold Burgess, The Meeting of East and West
Everybody in the world seems to be misperceiving everybody else of late, with predictably rageful consequences. Why should I miss out on the fun? Here’s my own contribution to the global confusion.
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147-International-Misunderstanding.puz
147-International-Misunderstanding.pdf
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A crossword of mine will appear tomorrow, September 13, and another Monday, September 14, in Universal Crossword.
Novel 147: Rosa Mackenzie Kettle, Lewell Pastures (1854)
William Holman Hunt, Morning Prayer
A younger son settles on an unpromising farm left him by his godfather.
Rosa Mackenzie Kettle (1818-1895) wrote some 26 novels between 1839 and 1895. This one has an involving (if sometimes contrived) plot and vivid (if sometimes exaggerated) characters.
“It is very pleasantly and unaffectedly written, is full of excellent description, and very true, but not common-place, analysis of character. . . . The cleverest and truest portraits in the book, delicately, yet most forcibly touched” are those of an unhappily married couple. “We have rarely seen that vague and baffling scourge of married life, incompatibility, analysed with a more masterly hand.” Leader and Saturday Analyst, August 5, 1854
“The story is ingenious, and extremely well told; although the materials are very simple, the interest is kept up, and those who begin to read will not be likely to put it down before they come to an end. . . . Those who are looking for a pleasant novel cannot do better.” Athenaeum, August 12, 1854
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Crossword 146: PPO
George Dunlop Leslie, Pot-Pourri
Since I intend my puzzles to last forever, I will add an explanation of this one, for the benefit of the solver of the future.
PPO, then, future solver, once stood for “Preferred Provider Organization.” Years ago, health care was arranged rather to maximize the profits of private industry than to promote public health. If you expected ever to need health care, you were advised to buy “insurance” from a private entity: you would pay this entity a monthly fee, and in return it would pay a percentage of your doctor’s fees—over a certain fixed “deductible” amount.
So say you paid this entity $2000/month, in exchange for which it agreed to cover 80% of your medical costs after a $1000 annual deductible. Say that, after 30 years of this, you got a disease and had to go to the hospital for a week. And say the hospital charged you $101,000 for your treatment. Lucky you!—you paid only $21,000 (your deductible plus 20% of your costs); your insurer covered the remaining $80,0000! And lucky insurer—having collected $720,000 from you over your 30 years of participation, it still got to keep $640,000! It seems a little crazy now, future solver, but the theory was that everybody benefited. The hospital got lots of money, the insurer got lots of money, and you didn’t die.
But there was a further little hitch, or snag, in the process. Most insurers agreed to pay 80% of your fees only if you paid them to certain selected doctors, who had previously made a deal with those insurers. Otherwise the insurers would pay only 60%, or 40% of your costs, or maybe even nothing at all. These selected doctors were collectively known as a “Preferred Provider Organization” or PPO.
So, future solver, however bleak things may seem at the moment, don’t forget to remind yourself—at least it’s not 2020.
Novel 146: Thomas Cobb, The Dissemblers (1900)
James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Room Overlooking the Harbor
A selfish woman sends emissaries after her runaway orphan niece, with unanticipated consequences.
Here is another novel by Cobb (see Novel 043), just as well-plotted, and witty, and brief as the last.
“In The Dissemblers, Mr. Cobb has constructed an amusing intrigue on the basis of a most ordinary domestic situation. . . . It is continually funny, not in phrase, but in its predicaments.” Academy, November 3, 1900
“The Dissemblers . . . shows that Mr. Cobb has by no means exhausted his large fund of pleasant invention nor abated one jot of his vivacity and sharp staccato treatment. . . . In his limited range it would be hard to find an English novelist to equal Mr. Cobb, and we must cherish all the light comedy that the national temperament allows us.” The Speaker, November 17, 1900
“This is as dainty a comedy of errors as has appeared for many a month. The plot is as meagre as such a web of trifles should be, the portraiture is delicate and truthful, and there is a steady flow of deft and sprightly wit, with several unimpeachably skilful situations.” Saturday Review, November 17, 1900
“Mr. Cobb has proved again in ‘The Dissemblers’ that he is a first-rate author with whom to spend an idle hour. He imposes no tax upon the mind or emotions, and is always amusing and entertaining. All his characters are delightful people who keep doing interesting things with a vengeance, and, however seriously they may take themselves, there is an element of quizzicality in his handling of them that is a direct appeal to the reader’s sense of humor.” Chicago Tribune, November 24, 1900
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Crossword 145: And There's More!
Edward John Poynter, Andromeda
There seems to be a trend nowadays of including more proper names in crosswords, on the theory that it’s fun to allude to cool stuff that fun, cool people like us like. I haven’t joined this trend, possibly for selfish reasons: my favorite Victorian novelists almost never show up in crosswords, whereas every other puzzle seems to include at least one Star Wars reference, however gratuitous: THE, for example, clued “Jabba ___ Hutt” or “Use ___ force, Luke!”
So I try to keep proper names out of my fill and also, especially, my themes. I sigh, more in sorrow than in anger, when I encounter yet another puzzle where the theme turns out to be a set of actors whose last names are also the names of dog breeds, or whatever.
This time, however, I’ve compromised my standards: half the theme answers contain proper names. But at least they’re reasonably passé proper names—a vice-president whose term ended in 2000, a children’s cartoon that premiered the same year, and a 1939 movie based on a 1900 novel.
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Novel 145: Eleanor Frances Poynter, My Little Lady (1870)
Sir Edward John Poynter, In a Garden
An impulsive French girl, raised by a gambler, is aided by an English doctor.
Eleanor Frances Poynter (1840-1929), the sister of the painter Sir Edward John Poynter and of the translator Clara Bell, wrote some seven novels between 1870 and 1892, of which the first is this poignant story of vulnerable innocence in a hard and confusing world.
“It is an agreeable task to record a book which can be read with genuine pleasure. My Little Lady’s history” is “written in a simple graceful style.” Athenaeum, December 17, 1870
“The whole book is charming; quietly told, quietly thought, without glare or flutter, and interesting in both character and story.” Saturday Review, December 17, 1870
“It is really pleasant to read a novel like ‘My Little Lady’—a simple story, so vividly potraying a few characters that we can imagine we have known them, felt all their troubles, and rejoiced in their happiness.” Examiner, January 7, 1871
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Crossword 144: Last In, First Out
William Henry Knight, The Lost Change
I’m afraid I took up the catchy-sounding phrase that supplies today’s puzzle’s title without any clear idea of what it meant. Something to do with airplane seating policies? Corporate layoffs? Is it a terse statement of the cultural truism that, when the worst things grow popular, the best are neglected?
According to Wikipedia, it is most commonly used to describe an accounting method designed to evade taxes in times of inflation. Oh well. It makes a good crossword title anyway.
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A crossword of mine appears Monday, August 24, in the New York Times
Novel 144, Ellen Wallace, Margaret Capel (1846)
Sir Luke Fildes, Carina
An innocent and virtuous young lady falls in love with her uncle's ward.
Here is another novel by Wallace (see Novel 074), with the same merits (quiet, vivid characterization, a good style) and the same defect (a painfully hard-to-swallow lovers’ misunderstanding).
“This is one of the best kind of ‘fashionable novels’: it is not only free from the vulgar impertinences of the ‘silver-fork school,’ but has the tone of good society, and, better still, a vein of pure and healthful sentiment. It gives an animated picture of country life among the upper class of gentry at the present day, sketched with the skill and tact of a nice observer; who possesses the art of indicating scenes and persons with a few graphic touches, and the power of making characters act and talk naturally.” Spectator, January 17, 1846
“It is a very fairly drawn picture from the life. It deals with the men and manners of our own time, and the author has been content to take the world as he finds it, without attempting to create imaginary persons or impossible events. . . . Altogether this is one of the best fictions the season has produced.” Critic, January 24, 1846
“Here is the best novel of the Austen school we have ever seen, with real men and women, natural situations, brilliant dialogue; but there are no stage tricks in it, no startling effects, no murders, adulteries, or seductions, and only one death of any sort—consequently it has received very moderate praise in England, and no one in America seems aware of its existence. . . . There have been very very few better novels written for the last six years.” Literary World, March 27, 1847
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Crossword 143: PR Issues
John Everett Millais, The Twins, Portrait of Kate Edith and Grace Maud Hoare
One theme per puzzle—that’s always been the rule of themed crosswords. But I find myself asking—why? Why adhere blindly to the worn-out conventions of the past? Why thwart human progress with hidebound rules of unity and order? So what if a few reactionary members of the bourgeoisie are shocked or confused? Did that keep Wagner from sonic discord and narrative incoherence? Picasso from crudity and distortion? The Bauhaus from faceless rectangularity? Let the Philistines be shocked; let them be confused! So much the better! Let a crossword have not just one theme, but two!!
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Novel 143: Francis E. Paget, Lucretia; or, The Heroine of the Nineteenth Century (1868)
John Henry Henshall, Thoughts
A young lady tries to live like the heroine of a novel.
Francis Edward Paget (1806-1882), rector of Elford, wrote half a dozen novels promoting his High Church views, beginning in 1833. This, a satire on the novels of M.E. Braddon and her kind (though it alludes also to Scott and Bronte), features an intriguing narrator, foolishly credulous and at the same time cleverly self-aware.
“This satire is quite just, because it exactly hits the great artistic fault of the sensational novel, the use of illegitimate means to produce an effect upon the reader.” Spectator, August 8, 1868
“A happier thought than the combination of a ludicrously sensational plot with a ludicrously sentimental heroine . . . could not have been devised.” Athenaeum, October 17, 1868
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Crossword 142: Like Fine Wine
Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1883
Those other, Brand-X constructors fill their crosswords with stuff—memes, actors, athletes, movie characters—that arose yesterday and will be forgotten tomorrow. Mine are designed, as the title of this one implies, to grow more rich and satisfying as the years pass.
To be sure, if it’s 2050, and you’re savoring this crossword along with your well-aged 2020 bottle of Lafite-Rothschild, you may be mildly puzzled by 50 Across—but, when you review the historical context, you’ll be able to congratulate yourself and your peers on the advances in rationality and humanity your country has made in the last thirty years.
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Novel 142: Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, The Inner Shrine (1900)
Edward John Gregory, The Spoils Of Opportunity
A poor young lady, dislocated from her quiet home, is taken up by some distant (and dubious) relations with a taste for travel.
Here is another fine novel by Sidgwick (see Novel 082): it features a virtuous heroine at the mercy of an amusingly selfish and self-deluded couple.
“A novel from the pen of Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick is always welcome, for while she steers a middle course between the rose-coloured optimism of the mid-Victorian novelists and the devotion to the doleful of their successors, the excellence of her matter is always enhanced by the alertness and vivacity of her style.” Spectator, November 17, 1900
“As usual, Mrs. Sidgwick has written a good book. She possesses, above the ordinary run of writers, the power to treat a comparatively slight plot in such a manner that it becomes absorbing, engrossing, a thing of paramount interest, till the last line is read; the power, too, to draw, with certain touch, a weak, or a false character, without a hint of cruelty or exaggeration.” Bookman, December 1900
“Many poorer novelists seem more discussed than Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick . . . yet she has staunch admirers, and in the memories of discriminating readers lingers as a writer of pleasant and wholesome, yet not common, stories. ‘The Inner Shrine’ is worthy to rank with these by virtue of an agreeable manner and good matter, a quiet thoughtfulness and a restful sense of humour. The people in it are interesting, because the author has found a way of making them reveal themselves; they and the situations in which they are placed are at times arresting and even poignant, though the verge of caricature or sensationalism is never approached.” Athenaeum, January 12, 1901
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Crossword 141: Middle Class
James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Portsmouth Dockyard, or How Happy Could He Be with Either
Oh the poor middle class! Not only is its wealth increasingly appropriated by billionaires, but for well over a century it has been routinely derided in high culture. Hipsters everywhere decry its foolish tastes, activists its mistaken values. No matter the authenticity of your own non-bourgeois (proletarian? aristocratic?) credentials—pronounce a thing "bourgie" and your title to sophistication is assured.
Well, though I will here and now claim (why not?) to have myself no connection whatsoever with the middle class, I feel sorry for it sometimes. I hope this crossword tribute will make it feel a little better.
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Novel 141: E.S. Maine, Among Strangers (1870)
Benjamin Leader, A Woodland Path, North Wales
A young Scotswoman, living with her rector uncle in a Welsh village, is wooed by various men.
Eliza Sophia Maine (1838-1891) wrote five novels in the 1870s, of which this is the first. Its ironically self-aware narrator and deftly-handled plot ought to have made its author better known than apparently she became.
A “pleasant little novel” that “deals with domestic life and never ventures beyond the natural limits of feminine knowledge.” Saturday Review, September 24, 1870
“The story is simple and unpretentious, but is told in so fresh and graceful a manner as to render it most acceptable.” Athenaeum, October 8, 1870
“Life and character in the remote Welsh valley are well drawn, and the narrator tells her story with vivacity in a natural, unaffected tone.” Spectator, January 28, 1871
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Crossword 140: Beaten Down
Edward John Poynter, The Champion Swimmer
If you wait till tomorrow, you’ll find the answer to 24 Down in the title of my crossword in the Los Angeles Times, to which this one serves as a sort of prequel. Meanwhile, here’s a painting that—while not very clearly related to either puzzle—may at any rate provide a little imaginary relief from this summer’s weather, by which so many of us find ourselves mercilessly beaten down.
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A crossword of mine appears tomorrow, July 26, and another Thursday, July 30, in Universal Crossword. Another crossword of mine also appears tomorrow, July 26, and yet another Friday, July 31, in the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, on Thursday, July 30, another crossword of mine appears in
the Wall Street Journal.
Novel 140: Elizabeth Anna Hart, A Very Young Couple (1873)
Sir William Quiller Orchardson, The Young Housewife
Newlyweds struggle to get by on an inadequate income.
Here is another novel by Hart (see Novel 006). It begins as a touchingly comic domestic story and ends in exciting sensationalism. Its heroine is well delineated in both parts.
“Though the story is slender, it has some capital sketching, and abounds in the characteristic humour and observation of life which distinguish the writings of this author. . . . We may recommend the story as delightful reading, and also the binding, paper, and printing of the book as most creditable to its popular and enterprising publisher.” Illustrated Review, January, 1874
“A very lively and pleasant little tale, vivid in its interest, and the harrowing part of it not too prolonged for endurance.” Spectator, January 31, 1874
“We confess to having been much amused.” Scribner’s, March 1874
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