11 March, 1894 — Sanditon Resort
A few days into his honeymoon, Ford was cautiously optimistic. He was not exactly planning to declare himself in love with his wife anytime soon, and their interactions both at night and throughout the day could not exactly be described as passionate, but it was obvious by now that they had both been genuine in their expressed intention to make the best of things. He had found plenty about her to like, as it turned out, and he hadn't yet managed to put his foot into his mouth so badly that he felt it unrecoverable. By Monday morning he had grown comfortable enough with her existence in their shared room that he no longer felt he needed to hover around in the mornings and see whether she needed anything, whether he was about to accidentally neglect some crucial part of being her husband. So when he woke up earlier than she did, he decided to dress quietly and let her sleep while he went downstairs for breakfast. He didn't know how long she might stay in the room, so he decided to bring a book — the one he had thoughtlessly grabbed off the shelf after Grace had admonished him for trying to bring books on his honeymoon at all. See, Grace, he thought as he headed towards the restaurant. Healthy married people get to read, too, sometimes.
It was a book of collected Muggle poetry, older but not ancient — Coleridge and Shelley and Byron and their ilk. Ford had read it already, but in a meandering sort of way where he hadn't committed much of it to long term memory. He asked the waitstaff for a pencil, in case there were any unfamiliar words he wanted to note — Muggles in 1815 didn't necessarily use coherent vocabulary in all cases — ordered food, and opened up the book to a section of Byron.
She walks in beauty, like the night, the first poem he opened to began, and Ford mused over the likelihood of his new wife enjoying poetry. This one had some turns of phrase he liked: nameless grace which waves in every raven tress, and the smiles that win, the tints that glow; he did not imagine he could copy down a poem for her now and be taken very seriously, but he could, perhaps, envision an optimistic future in which he might share something like this with her. He took the pencil and drew two stars in the margin by the poem's title, and short dashes at the beginnings of the lines that had made him think of her, so that he could find it again easily in the future if he wanted. It ended with a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent! and he frowned at the words for a moment, liking the sound of them but feeling it was — perhaps too optimistic to lay claim to them, even in some potential future scenario. He eventually decided to pass them by, but he was still feeling reasonably high-spirited as he continued on to the next page, which was titled They say that Hope is happiness.
One would have expected this poem to be a good deal better for his morale than it was. They say that Hope is happiness, fine, but by the very next line Byron had continued But genuine Love must prize the past. Ford rolled the pencil between his fingers in agitation for a moment. He skimmed though the rest of the stanza but hardly read the words; his mind was drifting towards the past. He underlined the opening lines of the poem, thinking that this was precisely the sort of thing he would copy down for Tycho if he allowed himself to write — but of course he could not allow that. He managed to convince himself for about two seconds that having underlined the opening would be enough, that he had exercised that particular urge and could now read the rest of the poem from a more objective point of view — but he was blindsided by the rest of the poem, and before he knew what he was about he had marked up nearly every line: underlines and margin marks and bars to the side, all that hope adored and lost and melted into memory and delusion all; the future cheats us, nor dare we think on what we are.
The title on the next page made him laugh out loud at the empty breakfast table: a short, humorless noise. You're doing this to yourself, he thought in admonishment, and because he already had the pencil to hand he even wrote on the top of the page: this is your fault. But in the end he could not deter himself from diving in and reading When we two parted. And it was just as bad as he had known it would be, and maybe worse; it fit too well. In secret we met — in silence I grieve.
Byron was not, in the end, a particularly good choice of reading material for his honeymoon.
He flipped forward a few pages, feeling disillusioned, and started one of Shelley's called Mutability, but it had barbs for him too: We rest — a dream has power to poison sleep; We rise — one wandering thought pollutes the day. He underlined it, and then was almost immediately confronted with Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow. He turned the page and tried to read another Shelley poem but gave up on it quickly when it too reminded him of Tycho; in the end he succeeded only in sketching the outline of a raven in flight in the side margin.
You ruined poetry, he wrote beneath the sketch of the bird, though he hoped that wasn't true.
He didn't realize his wife had arrived until she said good morning. Ford closed the book quickly, dropping the pencil in the process, and tried to recover both the fallen writing utensil and his composure in the same moment. His breakfast had arrived while he'd been reading but he had yet to touch it, he noticed only now. He told her he had only just ordered, without knowing whether that was true. And then he moved the book of poems to the edge of his chair, hidden away against the side of his leg, and asked her how she'd slept and what she wanted to eat and whether she had any plans for the day, and certainly did not ask whether or not she liked poetry.
It was a book of collected Muggle poetry, older but not ancient — Coleridge and Shelley and Byron and their ilk. Ford had read it already, but in a meandering sort of way where he hadn't committed much of it to long term memory. He asked the waitstaff for a pencil, in case there were any unfamiliar words he wanted to note — Muggles in 1815 didn't necessarily use coherent vocabulary in all cases — ordered food, and opened up the book to a section of Byron.
She walks in beauty, like the night, the first poem he opened to began, and Ford mused over the likelihood of his new wife enjoying poetry. This one had some turns of phrase he liked: nameless grace which waves in every raven tress, and the smiles that win, the tints that glow; he did not imagine he could copy down a poem for her now and be taken very seriously, but he could, perhaps, envision an optimistic future in which he might share something like this with her. He took the pencil and drew two stars in the margin by the poem's title, and short dashes at the beginnings of the lines that had made him think of her, so that he could find it again easily in the future if he wanted. It ended with a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent! and he frowned at the words for a moment, liking the sound of them but feeling it was — perhaps too optimistic to lay claim to them, even in some potential future scenario. He eventually decided to pass them by, but he was still feeling reasonably high-spirited as he continued on to the next page, which was titled They say that Hope is happiness.
One would have expected this poem to be a good deal better for his morale than it was. They say that Hope is happiness, fine, but by the very next line Byron had continued But genuine Love must prize the past. Ford rolled the pencil between his fingers in agitation for a moment. He skimmed though the rest of the stanza but hardly read the words; his mind was drifting towards the past. He underlined the opening lines of the poem, thinking that this was precisely the sort of thing he would copy down for Tycho if he allowed himself to write — but of course he could not allow that. He managed to convince himself for about two seconds that having underlined the opening would be enough, that he had exercised that particular urge and could now read the rest of the poem from a more objective point of view — but he was blindsided by the rest of the poem, and before he knew what he was about he had marked up nearly every line: underlines and margin marks and bars to the side, all that hope adored and lost and melted into memory and delusion all; the future cheats us, nor dare we think on what we are.
The title on the next page made him laugh out loud at the empty breakfast table: a short, humorless noise. You're doing this to yourself, he thought in admonishment, and because he already had the pencil to hand he even wrote on the top of the page: this is your fault. But in the end he could not deter himself from diving in and reading When we two parted. And it was just as bad as he had known it would be, and maybe worse; it fit too well. In secret we met — in silence I grieve.
Byron was not, in the end, a particularly good choice of reading material for his honeymoon.
He flipped forward a few pages, feeling disillusioned, and started one of Shelley's called Mutability, but it had barbs for him too: We rest — a dream has power to poison sleep; We rise — one wandering thought pollutes the day. He underlined it, and then was almost immediately confronted with Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow. He turned the page and tried to read another Shelley poem but gave up on it quickly when it too reminded him of Tycho; in the end he succeeded only in sketching the outline of a raven in flight in the side margin.
You ruined poetry, he wrote beneath the sketch of the bird, though he hoped that wasn't true.
He didn't realize his wife had arrived until she said good morning. Ford closed the book quickly, dropping the pencil in the process, and tried to recover both the fallen writing utensil and his composure in the same moment. His breakfast had arrived while he'd been reading but he had yet to touch it, he noticed only now. He told her he had only just ordered, without knowing whether that was true. And then he moved the book of poems to the edge of his chair, hidden away against the side of his leg, and asked her how she'd slept and what she wanted to eat and whether she had any plans for the day, and certainly did not ask whether or not she liked poetry.
Set by Lady!