Waugh is a genius. DO NOT watch the series before you read the book. The book, although it repulsed Waugh himself by his own admission in places, is still full of wit and pace. The series is unbelievably earnest and slow. I hated it, until I read the book and relished reliving any of the fine moments in this story. I think it's quite obvious that Charles' father is by far my favourite character.
'I suppose this is the time I should give you advice. I never had any myself except once from your cousin Alfred. Do you know, in the summer before I was going up, your cousin Alfred rode over to Boughton especially to give me a piece of advice? And do you know what that advice was? "Ned," he said, "there's only one thing I must beg of you. Always wear a tall hat on Sundays during term. It is by that, more than anything, that a man is judged." And do you know,' continued my father, snuffling deeply, 'I always did? Some men did, some didn't. I never saw any difference between them or heard it commented on, but I always wore mine. It only shows what effect judicious advice can have, properly delivered at the right moment. I wish I had some for you, but I haven't.'
***********
'...You're reading History? A perfectly respectable school. The very worst is English literature and the next worst is Modern Greats. You want either a first or a fourth. There is no value in anything between. Time spent on a good second is time thrown away. You should go to the best lectures - Arkwright on Demosthenes for instances - irrespective of whether they are in your school or not... Clothes. Dress as you do in a country house. Never wear a tweed coat and flannel trousers - always a suit. And go to a London tailor, you get better cut and longer credit... Clubs. Join the Carlton now and the Grid at the beginning of your second year. If you want to run for the Union - and it's not a bad thing to do - make your reputation outside first, at the Canning or the Chatham, and begin by speaking on the paper... Keep clear of Boar's Hill...' The sky over the opposing gables glowed and then darkened; I put more coal on the fire and turned on the light, revealing in their respectability his London-made plus-fours and his Leander tie... 'Don't treat dons like schoolmasters, treat them as you would the vicar at home... You'll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first... Beware of the Anglo-Catholics - they're all sodomites with unpleasant accents. In fact, steer clear of all religious groups; they do nothing but harm...'
************
It is the feast of S. Nichodemus of Thyatira, who was martyred by having a goat skin nailed to his pate, and is accordingly the patron of bald heads. Tell Collins, who I am sure will be bald before us. There are too many people here, but one, praise heaven! has an ear-trumpet, and that keeps me in good humour. And now I must try to catch a fish. It is too far to send it to you so I will keep the backbone.
[Sebastian Flyte's letter to Chares who is vacationing with Collins in Italy over Easter]
*************
[Charles whilst staying with his father in the holidays, invites an old school aquaintance, Jorkins to dinner]
My father was a master of the situation. He had made a little fantasy for himself that Jorkins should be an American, and throughout the evening he played a delicate, one-sided parlour-game with him, explaining any peculiarly English terms that occured in the conversation, translating pounds into dollars, and courteously deffering to him with such phrases as 'Of course, by your standards....'; 'All this must seem very parochial to Mr Jorkins'; 'In the vast spaces to which you are accustomed...' so that my guest was left with the vague sense that there was a misconception somewhere as to his identity, which he never got the chance of explaining. Again and again during the dinner he sought my father's eye, thinking to read there the simple statement that this form of address was an elaborate joke, but met instead a look of such mild benignity that he was left baffled.
Once I thought my father had gone too far, when he said: 'I am afraid that, living in London, you must sadly miss your national game.'
'My national game?' asked Jorkins, slow in the uptake, but scenting that here, at last, was the opportunity for clearing the matter up.
My father glanced from him to me and his expression changed from kindness to malice; then back to kindness again as he turned once more to Jorkins. It was the look of a gambler who lays down fours against a full house. 'Your national game,' he said gently, 'cricket.' and he snuffled uncontrollably, shaking all over and wiping his eyes with his napkin. 'Surely, working in the City, you find your time on the cricket-field greatly curtailed?'
At the door of the dining-room he left us. 'Good night, Mr Jorkins' he said 'I hope you will pay us another visit when you next "cross the herring pond".'
'I say, what did your governor mean by that? He seemed almost to think I was American.'
'He's rather odd at times.'
'I mean all that about advising me to visit Westminster Abbey. It seemed rum.'
'Yea. I can't quite explain.'
'I almost thought he was pulling my leg,' said Jorkins in puzzled tones.
*********************
It is thus I like to remember Sebastian, as he was that summer, when we wandered alone together through that enchanted palace; Sebastian in his wheel-chair spinning down the box-edged walks of the kitchen gardens in search of alpine strawberries and warm figs, propelling himself through the succession of hot-houses, from scent to scent and climate to climate, to cut the muscat grapes and choose orchids for our button-holes; Sebastian hobbling with a pantomime of difficulty to the old nurseries, sitting beside me on the threadbare, flowered carpet with the toy-cupboard empty about us and Nanny Hawkins stitching complacently in the corner, saying 'You're one as bad as the other; a pair of children the tow of you. Is that what they teach you at College?' Sebastian supine on the sunny seat in the colonnade, as he was now, and I in a hard chair beside him, trying to draw the fountain.
'Is the dome Inigo Jones too? It looks later.'
'Oh, Charles, don't be such a tourist. What does it matter when it was built, if it's pretty?'
************************
Wilcox welcomed our interest; we had bottles brought up from every bin, and it was during theose tranquil evenings with Sebastian that I first made a serious acquaintace with wine and sowed the seed of that rich harvest which was to be my stay in many barren years. We would sit, he and I, in the Painted Parlour with three bottles open on the table and three galsses before each of us; Sebastian had found a book on wine-tasting, and we followed its instructions in detail. We warmed the glass slightly at the candle, filled it a third high, swirled the wine round, nursed it in our hands, held it to the light, breathed it, sipped it, filled our mouths with it, and rolled it over the tongue, ringing it on the palate like a coin on a counter, tilted our heads back and let it trickle down the throat. Then we talked of it and nibbled Bath Oliver biscuits, and passed on to another wine then back to the first, then on to another, until all three were in circulation and the order of glasses got confused, and we fell out over which was which, and we pased the glasses to and fro between us until there were six glasses, some of them with mixed wines in them which we had filled from the wrong bottle, till we were obliged to start again with the three clean glasses each, and the bottles were empty and our praise of them wilder and more exotic.
'...It is a little, shy wine like a gazelle.'
'Like a leprechaun.'
'Dappled, in a tapestry meadow.'
'Like a flute by still water.'
'...And this is a wise old wine.'
'A prophet in a cave.'
'...And this is a necklace of pearls on white neck.'
'Like a swan.'
'Like the last unicorn.'
And we would leave the golden candlelight of the dining-room for the starlight outside and sit on the edge of the fountain, cooling our hands in the water and listening drunkenly to its splash and gurgle over the rocks.
'Ought we to be drunk every night?' Sebastian asked one morning.
'Yes, I think so.'
'I think so too.'
***********
The fortnight at Venice passed quickly and sweetly - perhaps too sweetly. I was drowning in honey, stingless. On some days life kept pace with the gondol, as we nosed through the side canals and the boatman uttered his plaintive musical bird-cry of warning, on other day with the speed-boat bouncing over the lagoon in a stream of sun-lit foam; it left a confused memory of fierce sunlight on the sands and cool, marble interiors; of water everywhere, lapping on smooth stone, refelcted in a dapple of light on painted ceilings of a night at the Corombona palace such as Byron might have known, and another Byronic night fishing for scampi in the shallows of Chioggia, the phospherescent wake of the little ship, the lantern swinging in the prow, and the net coming up filled with weed and sand and floundering fishes; of melon and prosciutto on the balcony in the cool of the morning, of hor cheese sandwiches and champagne cocktails at Harry's bar.
***********
My father greeted me with his usual air of mild regret.
"Here today," he said; "gone tomorrow. I seem to see very littel of you. Perhaps it is very dull for you here. How could it be otherwise? You have enjoyed yourself?"
"Very much. I went to Venice."
"Yes. Yes. I suppose so. The weather was fine?"
When he went to bed after an evening of silent study, he paused to ask: "The friend of yours you were so much concerned about, did he die?"
"No."
"I am very thankful. You should have written to tell me. I worried about him so much."
*****************
Then, back at Oxford, we took up again the life that seemed to be shrinking in the cold air. The sadness that had been strong in Sebastian the term before gave place to a kind of sullenness even towards me. He was sick at heart somwhere, I did not know how, and I grieved for him, unable to help.
When he was gay now it was usually because he was drunk, and when drunk he developed an obsession of 'mocking Mr Samgrass'. He composed a ditty of which the refrain was, 'Green arse, Samgrass - Samgrass green arse', sung to the tune of St Mary's chime, and he would thus serenade him, perhaps once a week, under his windows.
*********************
Next day Lady Marchmaine left Oxford, taking Sebastian with her. Brideshead and I went to his rooms to sort out what he would have sent on and what leave behind.
Brideshead was as grave and impersonal as ever. 'It's a pity Sebastian doesn't know Mgr Bell better,' he said. 'He'd find him him a charming man to live with. I was there my last year. my mother believes Sebastian is a confirmed drunkard. Is he?'
'He's in danger of becoming one.'
'I believe God prefers drunkards to a lot of respectable people.'
'For God's sake,' I said, for I was near to tears that morning, 'why bring God into everything?'
'I'm sorry. I forgot. But you know that's an extremely funny question.'
'Is it?'
'To me. Not to you.'
'No, not to me. It seems to me that without your religion Sebastian would have the chance to be a happy and healthy man.'
'It's arguable,' said Brideshead. 'Do you think he will need this elephant's foot again?'
****************
[Charles to his father on leaving oxford in the second year]
'I only thought that if I was not going to take up one of the professions where a degree is necessary, it might be best to start now on what I intend doing. I intend to be a painter.'
But to this my father made no answer at the time.
The idea, however, seemed to take root in his mind; by the time we spoke of the matter again it was firmly established.
'When you're a painter,' he said at Sunday luncheon, 'you'll need a studio.'
'Yes.'
'Well, there isn't a studio here. There isn't even room you could use decently as a studio. I'm not going to have you painting in the gallery.'
'No. I never meant to.'
'Nor will I have undraped models all over the house, nor critics with their horrible jargon. And I don't like the smell of turpentine. I presume you intend to do the thing thoroughly and use oil paint?'
My father belonged to a generation which divided painters into the serious and the amateur, according as they used oil or water.
'I don't suppose I will do much painting the first year. Anyway I should be working at a school.'
'Abroad?' asked my father hopefully. 'There are some excellent schools abroad, I believe.'
It was all happening rather faster than I intended.
'Abroad or here. I should have to look round first.'
'Look round abroad.' he said.
'Then you agree to my leaving Oxford?'
'Agree? Agree? My dear boy, you're twenty-two.'
'Twenty.' I said, 'twenty-one in October.'
'Is that all? It seems much longer.'
*****************
[Charles on being told off by Lady Marchmaine for giving Sebastian money for drink and leaving Brideshead.]
I was unmoved; there was no part of me remotely touched by her distress. It was as I had often imagined being expelled from school. I almost expected to hear her say: 'I have already written to inform your unhappy father.' But as I drove away and turned back in the car to take what promised to be my last view of the house, I felt that I was leavning part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried materials without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world.
'I shall never go back,' I said to myself.
************************
It is time to speak of Julia, who til now has played an intermittent and somewhat enigmatic part in Sebastian's drama. It was thus she appeared to me at the time, and I to her. We pursued seperate aims which brought us near to one another, but we remained strangers.
She told me later that she had made a kind of note of me in her mind, as, scanning the shelf for a particular book, one will sometimes have one's attention caught by another, take it down, glance at the title page and, saying 'I must read that, too, when I've time.' replace it, and continue the search. On my side the interest was keener, for there was always the physical likeness between brother and sister, which, caught repeatedly in different poses, under different lights, each time pierced me anew; and, as Sebastian in his sharp decline seemed daily to fade and crumble, so much the more did Julia stand out clear and firm.
***************************
[Rex on converting to Catholisism on Lady Marchmain's order for him to marry Julia]
'I don't pretend to be a very devout man,' he said, 'nor much of a theologian, but I know it's a bad plan to have two religions in one house. A man needs a religion. If your Church is good enough for Julia, it's good enough for me.'
'Very well,' she said, 'I will see about having you instructed.'
'Look, Lady Marchmain, I haven't the time. Instruction will be wasted on me. Just you give me the form and I'll sign on the dotted line.
'It usually takes some months - often a lifetime.'
'Well, I'm a quick learner. Try me.'
So Rex was sent to Farm Street to Father Mowbray, a priest renowned for his triumphs with obdurate catechumens. AFter the third interview he came to tea with Lady Marchmain.
'Well, how do you find my future son-on-law?'
'He's the most difficult convert I have ever met.'
'Oh dear, I thought he was going to make it so easy.'
'That's exactly it. I can't get anwhere near him. He doesn't seem to have the least intellectual curiosity or natural piety.
'The first day I wanted to find out what sort of religious life he had till now, so I asked him what he meant by prayer. he said "I don't mean anything. You tell me." I tried to, in a few words, and he said: "Right. So much for prayer. What's the next thing?" I gave him the catechism to take away. Yesterday I asked him whether Our Lord had more than one nature. He said: "Just as many as you say, Father."
'Then again I asked him: "Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said 'It's going to rain', would that be bound to happen?" "Oh yes, Father." "But supposing it didn't?" He thought a moment and said, "I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it."''
