MDDM Ch. 20 Summary & Notes

[jbor]

Chas has returned to Sapperton. We now meet Mason's sisters, Hester and
Anne, Hester's husband Elroy, and a husband-hunting harridan named Delicia
Quall, who has her sights set on Chas. (Meanwhile, Rebekah turns in her
grave.) Mason informs them all that he might soon journey to America.

While the women of the household rail against what they perceive as yet
another dereliction of paternal duty, Elroy takes Chas aside and proposes a
(financial) compromise in the form of a contract of apprenticeship for
William and Doctor Isaac to work at Mason Snr's mill when the boys're "of
Age".

Chas visits his father to nut out the issue of the boys' future, which turns
out to be an unpleasant confrontation. A narrative excursus (source?)
follows, elaborating on the character of the "elder Mason" - portraying him
as something of a mystic - and depicting earlier times in the Mason
household when father and son had worked together side by side kneading the
dough at the bakery. Chas, it seems, was frightened off this vocation (and
into Astronomy!) by the spiritual potentialities of the "bread". Both father
and son had found it difficult to express their inner thoughts to, and their
feelings for, one another.

Mason seems to be very concerned about the way the relationship with his own
two boys will turn out, whatever he eventually decides to do.

***

199.19 "Sally Lunn"  a type of teacake, said to be so called from a woman
pastrycook of that name who used to sell them on the streets of Bath at the
close of the 18th century. Dalmer, a baker and musician, bought her business
and made a song about the buns. Sally Lunn's house still exists in Lilliput
Alley. The original cakes were made like plain teacakes without any fruit
but with a yeasted mix. (Brewer's)

200.8 Delicia: "'tis universal, upon this planet, for a young widower to
seek a new wife as soon as decency permits." Cf. Mrs Bennett's aphorism
which opens Jane Austen's _Pride and Prejudice_: "It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in
want of a wife."

200.30 "the Newcastle gang" ? "New sorts of Whig" ?

201.4 "Mr Harrison's watch": the subject of Dava Sobel's _Longitude_.

202.8 Elroy: "When they're of Age, they'll both be apprentic'd to your
Father at the Mill. Standard seven year contracts."

At what age would that be?

202.14 Elroy: " ... yet ev'ryone needs Representation, from time to time. If
you go to America you'll be hearing all about that, I expect."

Another negative reference to the American propensity to excessive
litigiousness, and to the legal profession in general.

202.24 "mombly" ?

204.9 "the yeast Animalcula" animalcule. microscopic animal such as an
amoeba or rotifer (16th c. from New Latin *animalculum* a small animal)

204.25 "carnescent mass"  from carnal?

205.9 "Succedaneum"  succedaneum. something that is used as a substitute,
esp. any medical drug or agent that may be taken or prescribed in place of
another (17th c. From Latin *succedaneus* following after, *succedere* to
succeed)

204-6 Though the Sacramental imagery is most prominent here, it is
intertwined with scientific details ("the yeast Animalcula", the "living
network of cells") and pagan superstition ("ghosts less welcome").

best