I pin the blame on Isabella Alden (aka “Pansy”), one of Victorian
America’s most popular and revered Christian authors. Pansy’s work, unlike that
of most of her peers, stands the test of time (notwithstanding the more-than-occasional
Temperance plot points). Her warm, earnest, witty novels are richly detailed and
beautifully written, crafted to awaken settled, snoozing Christians. Pansy doesn’t
flinch at killing off main characters, beloved or not, and exposing the fetid
underside of her world. Anything to sound the alarm for the smug churchgoing
set. She’s become, hands down, my favorite author of any era.
My first encounter with Pansy was also my first encounter
with Chautauqua (the Victorian-Edwardian Sunday School rallying center and
present-day hangout for bougie suburbanites who love NPR). Once I met four
maidens who encountered their Savior during one momentous summer in Pansy’s Four Girls at Chautauqua, I was smitten.
I needed more. NEEDED. I stalked Ebay for Pansy’s books, buying e-versions when
print copies weren’t available. I hounded the patient author of the Isabella Alden tribute blog (it’s perfectly marvelous!). I devoured Pansy’s
The Hall in the Grove, Steven’s Mitchell’s
Journey, Four Mothers at Chautauqua, and Eighty-Seven—more of her lovingly penned homages to the nation-spanning,
artsy-booksy phenomena known as Chautauqua.
What started as a lark became an obsession. Since I live
only a few hours down the freeway from the place itself, I took a day trip last
summer. (The account of that visit can be found here on the Isabella Alden blog pages.) There
I discovered that the Chautauqua Literary & Science Circle (CLSC), the reading
club Pansy lauded and lionized in several of her books, still lived. In fact,
it’s America’s longest running book club!
Well, the friendly archivist informed me that CLSC members
could choose any 12 books from their
historic booklist, originated in 1878 by Chautauqua founders. This list formed
the correspondence school curriculum that provided a well-rounded, college-level
education, aimed at mostly unlettered but self-motivated store clerks, housewives,
and uppity chambermaids. Oh, bliss! I selected 12 Victorian-era texts and
plunged in (see my list here). Any reader who completes their list in the allotted
year is encouraged to join their “classmates” at Chautauqua for a traditional parade
through the grounds, clad in white and bearing banners from former classes (I’ve
got my eye on the Class of 1887 banner; that’s the Pansy Class, named for my
favorite author herself!). The parade winds up at the Hall of Philosophy (aka The Hall in the Grove) via those
legendary Golden Gates. I’ll be walking
in Pansy’s footsteps!
To adhere to the all-white graduation dress code and in
homage to my Victorian book choices, I contemplated wearing my genuine 19th
century petticoat (so handy when I was a Shakespeare-in-the-Park costume
mistress). What could be more appropriate? But that kind of whimsy could
quickly turn my semi-serious pursuit into a cosplay moment. And really, my
inspiration has been less reenactment and more cultural immersion.
As my year’s reading progressed, I was floored by the rigor
of the original 4-year CLSC courses. Members were TESTED on what they’d read,
including languages (primarily German, French, and Latin!!), hard sciences, higher
mathematics, history, astronomy, literature, and the arts. Today’s relaxed
requirements, apparently simplified for a weak-brained contemporary audience,
are to read 12 books. Period. Are we smarter or dumber these days? Pop quiz: Can
you do long division in your head? Name the Roman emperors in order? Know any
planet’s distance from the Sun? Me, neither. But Victorian CLSC grads were
expected to.
Readers can always tell when an author is in love with her
subject. For Pansy, every dawn-struck hillside and shoreline sunset, every chiming
bell and steamship whistle, each fern-wreathed tree stump and Auditorium bench,
every Doric column in the “Hall in the Grove” is a talisman. Here’s a good example
of the love she lavishes on her favorite place: “It is impossible to describe to you the
delight that was in the boy’s tones as the gleaming pillars of the Hall of
Philosophy rose up before him; something in the purity and strength, and
quaintness, seemed to have gotten possession of him. Whether it was a shadowy
link between him and some ancient scholar or worshipper I cannot say, but
certain it is that Robert Fenton, boy though he was, treading the Chautauquan
avenues for the first time, felt his young heart thrill with a hope and a
determination, neither of which he understood, every time he saw those gleaming
pillars.” (The Hall in the Grove)
And through Pansy, I’ve come to love it, too. Only I realize
I love a Chautauqua that exists only in her books—a place where Christ’s was
the moving Spirit, where truth was sanctified by its relationship to the Fountain
of Wisdom, where learning was a means to an end, and that end was to become better
equipped to serve the One who created and loves His complex, beautiful, needy
world.
“The Sovereign LORD has
given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He
wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.”
Isaiah 50:4