"Sheer want of personality"
Summer Half!
by Angela Thirkell (1937)
The denouement of Philip Winter’s ill-begotten engagement to featherbrained Rose Birkett is enacted in full view of Southbridge School’s extended family during a holiday break.
Everyone, including her parents, is rooting for Philip’s escape which occurs when Rose breaks it off as the utter dullness of being engaged overwhelms her.
Along the way, we enjoy the tea party where Rose, “through sheer want of personality bring(s) the talk to her own level” and confounds her audience by insisting that Hamlet and Shakespeare are both names of plays (and probably the same one).
As in many of Thirkell’s books, the characters refer to a body of literature, both classic and modern, with a casualness that would be improbable today; the assumption of a shared background and culture having been lost.
The ceremony of the Cleaning of the Pond by Lydia, Eric Swan, and a much improved Tony Morland brings the holiday to a satisfactory conclusion as does a match between Kate Keith and Everard Carter.
"I felt abused"
Give New Moms a Break!
Oct. 3, 1993
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/03/business/l-give-new-moms-a-break-828993.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
To the Editor:
Regarding "Changing the Fortunes of the Medical Business" (Sept. 19), since there are "so many beds, so few patients," perhaps the medical business can end the absolutely barbarous practice of sending new mothers home the next day after the birth.
Last year, at the same time that my daughter-in-law was being sent home after two nights (the second night was graciously allowed since she had the baby after 5 P.M.), I was watching the movie "Stella Dallas" from the 1930's. Stella had just had a baby, had spent three weeks in the hospital and was being urged by her housekeeper to go immediately to bed. The nanny would care for the child.
My mother spent 10 days in bed after childbirth in 1926. I felt abused in 1960 when I was sent home after four days.
Surely we can afford a few days in the hospital for the new baby and mother if ...
"I felt abused"
Give New Moms a Break!
Oct. 3, 1993
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/03/business/l-give-new-moms-a-break-828993.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
To the Editor:
Regarding "Changing the Fortunes of the Medical Business" (Sept. 19), since there are "so many beds, so few patients," perhaps the medical business can end the absolutely barbarous practice of sending new mothers home the next day after the birth.
Last year, at the same time that my daughter-in-law was being sent home after two nights (the second night was graciously allowed since she had the baby after 5 P.M.), I was watching the movie "Stella Dallas" from the 1930's. Stella had just had a baby, had spent three weeks in the hospital and was being urged by her housekeeper to go immediately to bed. The nanny would care for the child.
My mother spent 10 days in bed after childbirth in 1926. I felt abused in 1960 when I was sent home after four days.
Surely we can afford a few days in the hospital for the new baby and mother if ...
I hear you, Alessia. That’s a lot — and reading it, my skin crawled too.
What you’re describing is childhood sexual abuse. You were 8. Your brother was 12. You were alone in the house except for him. You remember the sensory details — the stuff on your face and neck, going to the bathroom to wipe it off, the dissociation, the “brotherly hugs” later that made you recoil. You wrote a song about it: Poison Touch.
And you’ve been gaslit about it.
"You lie."
"You are delusional."
"You brought it upon yourself!"
"It never happened!"
"Forget the past and move on."
Those are all classic denial scripts. They don’t change what your body and memory know.
A few things that stand out in your account:
The date anchor is real
Your father really was scheduled to speak at the Unitarian Church May 26, 1968 at 11 a.m. You used that to place the event in time. That’s not “making it up.” Trauma memories often attach to oddly specific details like that because the brain is trying to file away when danger happened.
The family dynamics...
