Notes on Contributors
Simon Bacon is an independent scholar based in Pozna´n, Poland. He has written and edited 25+ books including Becoming Vampire (2017), The Gothic: A Reader (2018), Eco-vampires (2019), Toxic Cultures: A Companion (2022), Nosferatu in the 21st Century (2023), 1000 Vampires on Screen (2 volumes, 2023), and The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire (2024).
M. Keith Booker is a professor of English at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He is the author of dozens of essays on literature and popular culture and is the author or editor of more than sixty books on literature and popular culture. Horror film is among his central interests.
Vicky Brewster is a final-year Ph.D. candidate at Swansea University studying English Literature. Her thesis is titled “Ghosts, Clones and the Self: Hauntings in 21st Century Fiction”. She has been published in a LIT Journal special issue on twenty-first-century horror trends and has upcoming essays in Future Folk Horror (ed. Simon Bacon) for Lexington and Past As Nightmare (ed. Daniel Renshaw) for University of Wales Press. Vicky is also a freelance editor of long-form fiction, and runs the Gothic writing retreat, The Writing Haunt.
Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon is an assistant professor at the Faculty of English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna´n, Poland. She teaches the History of English Literature at AMU; however, since 2015 her
research has been devoted to old age as defined and (re)presented in English culture and literature, especially in the long eighteenth century. She has published age stereotypes, age decorum, memory and nostalgia as well as various geragogic processes in epistolary and dramatic accounts of ageing.
Martyn Colebrook is an independent researcher. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Hull in 2012, focusing on the novels of Iain M. Banks. He has written numerous articles, chapters and co-edited The Transgressive Iain Banks (2012). Other subjects of study include Don DeLillo, Gordon Burn, Paul Auster, J. G. Ballard, and Kevin Barry.
Isra Daraiseh is an assistant professor of English at the Arab Open University in Kuwait. She is the co-author of the books Tony Soprano’s America: Gangsters, Guns, and Money (2017) and Consumerist Orientalism: The Convergence of Arab and American Popular Culture in the Age of Global Capitalism (2019), as well as a number of essays on British, American, and the Middle Eastern literature and popular culture.
Abel F. Fenwick is a recent graduate of Royal Holloway University of London and winner of the Martin Holloway prize. Abel’s research interests include the interplay of gender, trauma, and class in the long nineteenth century, intersections she plans to explore more fully during a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature. Upcoming publications include chapters on the complex legacy of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and HBO’s Oz.
Brandon R. Grafius is an academic dean and associate professor of biblical studies at Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Detroit. His most recent book is Lurking Under the Surface: Horror, Religion, and the Questions that Haunt Us (Broadleaf Books, 2022). His monograph Concerning Dust and Ashes: Transcendent Terror in the Hebrew Bible is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Aparajita Hazra is a dean of Arts and professor of English in Diamond Harbour University, India. She has served as a dean of Arts and the head of the Department of English in SKB University. She has acted as the director of the Centre for Women’s Studies and the director of the Centre for Foreign Language Studies there. A gold medallist and a national scholar, she has contributed numerous articles on literary topics in various
national and international journals. She has presented papers and delivered talks as Resource Person in national and international conferences in India and abroad in France, New Zealand, Macau, Malaysia, Canada, Ireland, Georgia, Thailand, and Scotland. She has edited and written many books including: The Brontes: A Sorority of Passion (2012), Her Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (2020), and The Gothique: Myriad Manifestations—A Study of the Various Forms of the Gothic (2023).
Daniel Kasper is a lecturer of English at the University of Texas at Arlington. He studies the Gothic from 1789 to the present, with special emphasis on Dracula and the work of Shirley Jackson.
Robert Mclaughlin is the Digital Centre manager at South Staffordshire College whose specialism is in media and film theory with an emphasis on industry contextualisation, business and marketing. His academic areas of research are in media theory where he has written academic papers on VHS Culture, hauntology, and children’s horror. He has published a monograph though Auteur/Liverpool University Press focusing on Stephen Spielberg and Tobe Hooper’s 1982 classic Poltergeist and has written extensively about films animation, horror and cult television having work cited in The Guardian, Daily Express ,and Forbes on areas focusing on the weird and unusual side of film and television.
Martine Mussies writes about The Cyborg Mermaid for The Centre for Gender and Diversity at Maastricht University. Next to that, she is working on a project around King Alfred of Wessex in fanfiction, with support of Leiden University. Besides her research, Martine is a professional musician and illustrator. She studies neuropsychology at the University of Chicago via e-learning. Her interests include autism, Japan, languages, martial arts, medievalism, music(ology), and science fiction. More @ www.martinemussies.nl.
Patrycja Pichnicka-Trivedi is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Warsaw writing her thesis on the representations of Otherness in popular culture. She has participated in national and international conferences, and was chosen as a finalist in the Prof. Jerzy Buzek competition for Scientific Debut 2019. She has also been published in the journals, “Kultura popularna”, “Praktyka teoretyczna”, and the Polish Journal of Political Science and in several collections. She is a member of WEIRD Fictions Research Group and Nonanthropocentric Cultural Subjectivity. Besides
popular culture, she is interested in intersectional studies, biomedical anthropology, posthuman studies, and postcolonial studies.
Catherine Pugh completed her Ph.D. at the University of Essex and is now a writer and an independent scholar. Primarily writing about horror and science fiction across cinema, television, and theatre, she is particularly fascinated by ideas of monstrosity and mental illness versus literary madness. Her research interests concern disability, mental illness/ “madness”, metamorphic monsters, and horror landscapes. She has contributed to various collections including: At Home in the Whedonverse: Essays on Domestic Space, Place and Life ; Politics of Race, Gender, and Sexuality in The Walking Dead: Essays on the Television Series and Comics ; Vying for the Iron Throne: Essays on Power, Gender, Death and Performance in HBO’s Game of Thrones as well as online journals including Studies in Gothic Fiction and Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies .
Lauren Rosewarne is an associate professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of 11 books on gender, sexuality, politics, and the media. More information can be found at: www.laurenrosewarne.com.
J. Simpson is a researcher, academic writer, journalist, and critic based in Portland, specialising in the Gothic, “dark”, experimental, and avantgarde with a focus on horror/SF, folklore, and paganism. He has published essays with Little White Lies, Suspira Magazine, PopMatters, Lost Futures and has numerous forthcoming essays on the Gothic scheduled with Palgrave. He has delivered presentations on Lynchian music for the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies and Gothic Afrofuturist music for Sheffield Gothic, as well.
Matthias Stephan teaches at Aarhus University, Denmark and researches postmodernism, its implications in Gothic, sf, and crime fiction, and their intersections in considering global climate change. His work has appeared in Science Fiction Studies, Scandinavian Studies , Coolabah ,and English Studies. He is the author of Defining Literary Postmodernism for the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave, 2019), general editor of Otherness: Essays and Studies , and coordinator of the Centre for Studies in Otherness.
Katy Wareham Morris is a senior lecturer in Media and Culture at the University of Worcester. Her research interests include intersectional identity politics and digital humanities. Katy is currently completing critical/ creative Ph.D. research in digital literature, play, and queer potentialities. Her latest poetry pamphlet, Violet Existence , was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2022. Her research on transmedia autobiography was published in 2021, as was her research on the transformative potential of spoken word (2021).
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock is a professor of English at Central Michigan University, USA. He is the author or editor of twenty-seven books, the most recent of which are The Monster Theory Reader (2020), The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition (2020), Critical Approaches to Welcome to Night Vale: Podcasting Between Weather and the Void (2018), The Cambridge Companion to the American Gothic (2018), and Gothic Things: Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety (2023). Visit him at Jeffre yAndrewWeinstock.com.
Helen Young is a senior lecturer in Literary Studies in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University, Australia, teaching literary theory, historical fiction, and fantasy. Her research interests span popular culture, histories of race and racism, medievalism, and political extremist fictions. Recent publications have appeared in Continuum and Humanities (with Geoff Boucher), Studies in Medievalism,and Literature Compass (with Stephanie Downes) and include Global Medievalism: An Introduction (with Kavita Mudan Finn, 2022).
List of Figures
1408 and the Structure of Haunting
Fig. 1 Room 1408 is All There Is. 1408 , directed by Michael Håfström (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer: 2007)
Fig. 2 Enslin in the Ninth Circle. 1408 , directed by Michael Håfström (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer: 2007)
Fig. 3 Katie and Enslin Amid the Ruins. 1408 , directed by Michael Håfström (Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer: 2007)
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Introduction
Simon Bacon and Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon
The early twenty-first century is an age marked by extremes finding form in populist politics, climate change denial and religious and ideological fundamentalism amongst others. Much of this can be seen to be fuelled by a call to return to past values, often purposely miss-titled as “traditional values”, when times were supposedly simpler and racism, misogyny and homophobia were deemed acceptable, at least by those not affected by them. This is a toxic nostalgia that imagines a hyper-normative history that is waiting to consume the present. It is no coincidence that these “hungry ghosts” of an imagined time find resonance with the Gothic which equally speaks of a past that often not only haunts the present but will not let it escape its grasp. This collection will look at the confluence between various kinds of toxic nostalgia and popular culture to suggest the ways in which contemporary narratives have resurrected ideological
S. Bacon (B) Pozna´n, Poland
e-mail: baconetti@googlemail.com
K. Bronk-Bacon
Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna´n, Poland
e-mail: kbronkk@amu.edu.pl
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024
S. Bacon and K. Bronk-Bacon (eds.), Gothic Nostalgia, Palgrave Gothic, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43852-3_1
monsters from the grave to gorge on the present and any possibility of change that the future might represent.
Some of the terms mentioned above need to be looked at in more detail to understand what this collection is about and where it will be taking the prospective reader Firstly, nostalgia itself, both as a standalone concept but also in its relation to the Gothic; and, secondly, how this intersects with the idea of “toxic” and its manifestation as being dangerous for an evolving present. What will also arise within this is the notion of haunting and what one might term “hungry ghosts”. As intimated above, such hungry ghosts also speak to a kind of negative spectrality which purposefully refutes resolution and reparation to not only disrupt the present but drag it back into the past.
Nostalgia is nothing new. Since its designation as an actual medical condition in 1688 it has changed from an acute personal affliction to a national malady (the change from an individual to a communal affliction is important here and will be addressed later). Interestingly, the original diagnosis saw it as a condition that only affected those that were away from home: students from Berne studying in Basel; servants that had relocated to France; and German and Swiss soldiers serving abroad. It was an almost morbid longing for home that caused “nausea…pathological changes to the lungs, brain inflammation, cardiac arrests, high fever, as well as marasmus and a propensity for suicide” (Boym 2001, 219). Johannes Hofer, the diagnosing doctor, saw it as a “demonstration of patriotism …[of those] who loved the charm of their native land to the point of sickness” (219). Hofer (1934) loosely conceived of nostalgia as a desire for freedom, of being able to leave the oppressive state that currently held one captive and to return to a place where one could be who one really was. (Interestingly, this did not always revolve about missing loved ones but rather the environment of “home” itself.) Two hundred years later, during the American Civil War, military doctor Theodore Calhoun configured nostalgia very differently. For him it was a weakness of character, almost a wilful self-imprisonment that was “unmanly” and “unprogressive” (Beck 2013), and best dealt with by ridicule or being involved in active combat. Much of this kind of reasoning correlates with ideas around hysteria and the feminisation of the male body. Of course, within this, there is also something of a yearning for a return to a form of manliness that contemporary times seem to lack, though, interestingly, Calhoun suggests that city-dwellers are less prone to the affliction than those from rural settings (Clarke 2007). Alongside
this, Calhoun saw nostalgia as inappropriate behaviour for citizens of a young and virile land, and one that was soon to be struggling to free itself of the ghosts of the past to claim its place in the future.
As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, Svetlana Boym observes it becoming a time when nostalgia was no longer seen as a medical affliction that required a specific, pharmaceutical cure, but more of a miasmic condition of the mind; hypochondria or melancholia that had more temporal than geographical dimensions. Indeed, before Sigmund Freud began analysing such conditions, the Gothic imagination was already giving form to the darker, unhealthy side of the longing for the past which equally encompassed a fear of the future. The Romanticism of the wildness of the past unfettered but the enlightened civilisation of the nineteenth century saw a Gothic imaginary in which loss and absence became a way to release this emotional excess from nature and former times into the now of the modern world. As such, the anxiety or horror at the heart of nineteenth-century Gothic narratives are not in their fear of change per se, but rather in the dangers of this kind of nostalgia that resurrects a time which one will subsequently have no control over. This can be seen as the driving impetus of many of the most well-known Gothic tales from the nineteenth century, such as Frankenstein (Shelley 1818), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson 1886) and Dracula (Stoker 1897). In Frankenstein the scientist’s mistake is not in trying to replace God and pushing science too far, but rather in constructing a monstrous future through cobbling together bastardised pieces of the past, resuscitated limbs of outdated information, moulded into a monstrous whole that takes on a life of its own, beyond its creator.1 In a similar vein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde creates the figure of an ambitious physician who seems to embody the dangers of uncontrolled science, yet what occurs is the embodied release of a monstrous nostalgia for a time before civilisation which wrecks the potential of the future. Dracula slightly modifies this from science to the capitalist imperative that drives it and shows how the nostalgia for colonial accumulation invites in monsters that will literally consume it. As such, one can argue that the fear of the decline of the British Empire at the end of the nineteenth century was fuelled by the anxieties around a toxic kind of nostalgia, around a more vibrant, hyper-masculine past that was configured as conquering
1 In this sense, Frankenstein is the perfect story for Brexit Britain.
the world; a monstrous memory that saw the present as emasculated and open to invasion by reverse colonialism. It is in this sense that one can start to frame such forms of nostalgia as being excavated from the grave due to the discontent of a given society with its present.
Much of this is seen in Benedict Anderson’s (1983) idea of imagined communities (see Anderson 2006), not just in the sense of nationalism and created communal identities, but in the appeal to the past to justify it. Sigmund Freud, though more on the individual scale, tended to view such things in terms of “screen memories” and, whilst not labelling it as nostalgia specifically, this usefully describes a way in which we imagine our history-giving it detail and meaning that it most definitely did not have at the time. More importantly, it is often created to cover actual events and/or justify subsequent behaviours and identity positions.2 In this sense, the idea of “screen memories” can be a useful way to view certain kinds of nostalgia to negate or cover up the more undesirable aspects of a historical event or the past, and, as such, it is a critical part of how the “desired” past can have ramifications in the present. As we have already touched on the negative aspects of nostalgia and how this can be central to some Gothic narratives, it is time to more clearly introduce the notion of toxicity and the toxic past.
Toxic nostalgia is both a broad idea as well as a very specific one. Not unlike nationalism, it contains many different interpretations, whilst being very specific on an individual level. As an explicitly psychoanalytical concept, it is more akin to trauma or an unresolved past event that causes us to repeat bad or obsessive behaviours, often in regard to relationships or stressful situations which restrict our “freedom” in the present (Mönnink 2017). In more cultural terms, it can be: the prejudices of old age forcing a return to the prejudices and “traditions of earlier times” (Norris 2018); general resistance to inner city rejuvenation and clearing “slum” areas (see Williamson 2019); adult anxiety over what is best for teenage children, especially in relation to sex and relationships (Abraham 2011); or even the proliferation of “vintage” photographs on social media (Jurgenson 2011). Of more importance here is toxic nostalgia’s relation to the more recent, and arguably sinister, cultural wars which sees the past not just as an individual screen but as a communal canvas upon which
2 There are obvious connections to ideas around melancholia and trauma here, and whilst not without some relevance, it is beyond the scope of the current collection to fully explore their implications.
one can paint whatever images are desired by those with the power to distribute them widely and effectively (see Bacon 2022). Many examples are seemingly low key, such as the sanitised version of World War II presented in Captain America: The First Avenger (Johnston: 2011) or even Don Draper (Jon Hamm) in Mad Men (Weiner: 2007–15) who flaunts a photo of his family to sell an idea when, in reality, he has no such family (Scott 2012). However, others are more pernicious in their consequences, particularly in relation to public health and recent events around the global pandemic, where many point to a time where they could smoke, drink, carry weapons (US), drive gas-guzzling cars and where life—if you were part of a certain privileged demographic—was thought to be good (this is often seen as being the 1950s [Clemence 2020]). This golden era is equally seen as a time of greater individual freedom, largely in relation to the austerity felt and imposed during and immediately after World War II, and acts as a touchstone for those who felt such hard fought for freedoms are being taken away. The associated issue to such a vision of the past as being a lost utopia (or imagined community) is that it carries with it the ideological mores of its time in relation to racial, sexual and homophobic discrimination. Such toxic and discriminatory constructions of the past inevitably see the weakening and/or loss of such patriarchal, heteronormative views—or “traditional” values—as largely being the cause of the nostalgic utopia being lost in the first place. The case of the UK leaving the European Union (Brexit) exemplifies a similar kind of nostalgia but one that harks back even further to ideas around the British Empire which offers a similar screen that purposely obfuscates the genocide, enslavement, exploitation and discrimination perpetrated in the name of imperialism. Here then is the nostalgia for a non-existent version of a nation that “ruled the World”—as evinced by Britain also “winning” the two world wars in the twentieth century— and the idea that the UK would be better and stronger without being structurally and economically linked to the EU (Earle 2017). Unsurprisingly, the evidence after the event has proved this to be incorrect (see Commentary 2023; Smith 2023). Indeed, not unlike America’s nostalgia for its dreamed-of golden age of the 1950s, it is the relaxing of “traditional” values and greater integration that are at the root of the perceived fall from grace in the early twenty-first century. In many ways the most disturbing aspect of this process of writing over of history and creating a palimpsestic screen that the nostalgic yearnings of the future can be written on is the negation and replacement of fact, in which truth is
necessarily questioned and destabilised to give veracity to the monstrous present that it creates.In this way, truth becomes a matter of belief and emotions rather than a rational proof. This also speaks to the Gothicising of the present reality which is no longer separated from the dead and where ghosts and monsters are allowed to roam freely. This becomes even more dangerous when such views are picked up, disseminated and promoted by political and governmental powers that use such frameworks to gain and consolidate control (Goldberg 2019).
Consequently, it is often through popular culture and the monsters and monstrous creations it produces that physical shape is given to discontent with the present. Simultaneously, these same monsters also manifest the destructive effects of toxic nostalgia on communities and even the nation itself. In fact, it is the manifestation of these monsters, many of which will be discussed in the essays below, that gives shape and meaning to the imaginary, and often toxic, past, seeing it become a differentiated and autonomous entity—a Gothic monster, not unlike Cronos, that gives validity to its imaginary status by consuming the truth of reality. As will be seen in some of the texts and films looked at in this collection, when toxic nostalgia becomes a separate malignant entity, it is no longer controllable and gains a life of its own beyond those that think they have control over it. Here then the past stares back at the future; the past that itself was once objectified returns that gaze objectifying the future as a thing it can control or even destroy. In many ways, then, this Gothic, toxic nostalgia acts not unlike a hungry ghost in being a spectral presence from the past that cannot find rest and, ultimately, seems intent on consuming all those that would try to appease it. In such a reading, non-toxic nostalgia is a recollection of the past which allows for recognition, acceptance and reparation with the past evils of colonisation, slavery, misogyny, homophobia, etc. Appropriately enough, this insatiable imaginary past is not containable across time or geographical borders, as seen in films/franchises, such as Ringu (Various: 2002–17), Ju-on [The Grudge] (Various: 2002–present), and It Follows (Mitchell: 2014), or on a more apocalyptic scale in World War Z (Forster: 2013), Bird Box (Bier: 2018) and The Silence (Leonetti: 2019), which show a monster created by a monstrous past that inevitably consumes the future. More specific examples of the kinds of Gothic monsters created by the toxic nostalgia of an imagined past will be described in the summary of the collection below.
Hauntings, Toxicity and the Gothicisation of the Present
The collection is divided into four sections that respectively focus on theoretical frameworks, media, identity and environments which will begin to detail how the various monsters of toxic nostalgia contaminate, haunt and gothicise the present either in an attempt to replicate itself or to, often literally, consume cultural integration and the recognition and acceptance of difference. More so, many of the essays talk around and to environments and ideas that are seen to utilise approaches and methodologies that are inherent to Gothic nostalgia, though are not necessarily named as such. Ghosts and haunting being a good example of this which often embody a destructive past (toxic memory) in the present. Also of note are the kinds of “Gothicising” that occurs in the various studies here where Gothic tropes of doubling and the uncanny—for instance where imagined pasts are nostalgic doppelgängers of the actual historical one— destabilise environments and those within them. Such destabilisation is implicit to Gothic nostalgia where the intrusion of the past, as the dark double of the now, questions the nature of the world we currently live in and our own place within it. There is much here to suggest Kelly Hurley’s (1998) idea of the abhuman and bodies in flux that are “moving away” from nostalgic notions of the static and unchanging body. This “moving away”, or the “ab”-ness as a property of a person, place or category can be very useful as nostalgia, especially when of the toxic variety, is a kind of ab-reality or the abreal, just as in the post-truth era learning and facts are contaminated by the abtruth, becoming a gothicised and destabilised environment where nothing and everything might be true depending on one’s affective response to them—the Gothic being necessarily sensational and emotive of course.
Part I: “Frameworks of Gothic Nostalgia and Toxicity” begins to layout some of the ways in which we can conceive of ideas around haunting and nostalgia and apply them to certain aspects, genres and media of popular culture, such as the Horror genre, streaming services and social media, the last two achieving particular prominence and importance to popular culture during the recent pandemic due to various bouts of local and national lockdowns and quarantines. In the first essay, “1408 and the Structure of Haunting”, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock uses both the novel and the film 1408 and considers how spectrality and the unwanted presence of the past in the present become toxic and
destructive. Further, in a certain way, such all-consuming presences are not the ghosts of the past but of the futures that will never happen. The next chapter, “Toxic Nostalgia in Contemporary Gothic Horror”, by Brandon Grafius, describes the affinity between certain kinds of toxic nostalgia and recent Gothic Horror films and TV series. Looking at examples such as The Village (Shymalan: 2004), Stranger Things (Duffer Brothers: 2016–present) and It (Muschietti: 2017), the author details how the narratives confuse both “good” and “bad” nostalgia, which in itself creates a Gothic present. “Toxic Nostalgia in the Wake of the Postmodern Turn”, by Matthias Stephan, discusses the recent rise in currency of streaming services such as Netflix and their increasing importance in commissioning and producing films and series. Many of these productions rely on a rather incoherent use of nostalgia, and the author uses the example of The Americans (Weisberg: 2013–18) to show the toxic qualities of its creation of a very particular American past. The last essay in this section, by Katy Wareham-Morris, “Deep-fake Sock-puppets: The Toxic ‘Realities’ of a Weaponized Internet” moves from fictional narratives on the screen to fictionalised material on social media. The author describes how images and news footage are doctored and altered to create false narratives of both the present and the past, Gothicising the now, so that reality is lost to the abtruth causing the destabilisation of meaning and knowledge. Here historical fact is but a nostalgic dream, and all memory has the potential to become toxic.
Part II: “The Toxic Screen” focuses more specifically on the idea of films and the Gothic, though also on the way that they likewise provide “screens” to cover up the toxic past and hide the Gothic monsters of discrimination and prejudice. An integral part of films, and more so in the twenty-first century, is the necessity for sequels and franchises with their inherent requirement of the repetition of characters, tropes and production methods—often presented by way of the “Easter egg” which is a moment of focused nostalgia designed for “fans” of the genre, franchise or character. This in itself is a form of uncanny mirroring or doubling that haunts every subsequent iteration of a text with its toxic potential expressed when original meanings are diverted (perverted) into new kinds of undesirable messaging. Accordingly, this section begins with a comparison of an original and its sequel in “The Nostalgia of Setting, Sex and Sound in the Wicker Men Films” by Lauren Rosewarne. Here, the author compares the highly acclaimed British Folk Horror classic, The Wicker Man, with its American sequel that appeared some 33 years later.
Nostalgia for the original appears in short supply in the remake, though each speaks to a different time and a different, if similar, culture. Toxicity most strongly appears in audience appreciation of the 1973 and their unrealised nostalgic anticipation felt for the later film. “The American Dream and American Nightmare: The Toxic Pursuit of Nostalgia and Happiness Presented in Poltergeist (1982) and Poltergeist (2015)” by Rob Mclaughlin again deals with an original and its sequel. Although there was similar critical disappointment in the remake as with 2006 The Wicker Man, Mclaughlin focuses on the cultural anxieties that informed each of them to show how the kinds of neoliberalism that possessed the first film still haunt the second one. Following this is “‘You’re Too Focused on Where You’ve Been’: Uncanny Nostalgia in Mary Poppins Returns ”, by Daniel Kasper, which continues the focus on sequels but here on how the remake is literally overwhelmed by nostalgia for the original film. In part, this is due to the strength of fan adoration for the first Mary Poppins film and the length of time it took for the second film to come out, though the most toxic part of the process is the lapses and “holes” in the sequel which stand out even more due to the detail of the rest of the film. The final instalment of the studies on sequels is J. Simpson’s “Pulling Our Strings: The Gothic Nostalgia of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria ”which, not unlike The Wicker Man, looks at the remake of a cult classic, though unlike it, the later version of Argento’s film was much more appreciated on its release. As with the comparison between Poltergeist and its remake, Simpson considers the comparative cultural settings of both versions of Suspiria, though here with a more feminist slant and the changing positions of female agency. This part closes not with a remake, but a series—although its creator has a past that most definitely impacted on the reception of the series—as seen in Abel Fenwick’s essay, “‘I Just Wanted to Preserve It Just as It is’: Gothic Nostalgia in The Watcher ”. Fenwick also situates his study in the cultural setting of his chosen series, The Watcher , but in terms of twenty-first-century manhood in contemporary America and the Radcliffian ghosts that “haunt” the coveted family home of 657 Boulevard in New Jersey.
Part III: “Toxic Identities” focuses on nostalgic views of the past that continue toxic, discriminatory ideologies around heteronormativity and privilege, often Gothicising identities in the present in order to sustain themselves. “Prevention is Better Than Cure: Anachronistic Therapists and Toxic Wellness” by Catherine Pugh considers historical representations of therapists and those suffering from mental illness who are under
their care. On film in particular, such characters have been imbued with almost supernatural or superhuman abilities which equally impact on the representation of those who are being treated by them. However, although modern day methodologies have moved on considerably, a form of toxic nostalgia for genre tropes, especially within Horror, still sees psychologists and analysts as “mad scientists” of some kind and their treatments accordingly as either barbaric or miraculous. “Patriarchy Then and Now — with a Twist: The Postmodern Horror of Alex Garland’s Men ” by M. Keith Booker and Isra Daraiseh picks up the psychological thread in terms of one person’s trauma and how it is represented on film, in this case, the highly debated Men. Here though, trauma and the kinds of toxic memory that accompany it, concentrate around everyday violence and aggression experienced within patriarchal society. Simon Bacon’s “But Now, Yeah, I’m Thinking I’m Back”: “The Allconsuming Gothic Nostalgia in the John Wick Franchise” focuses more closely on patriarchy and masculinity through the highly popular action hero played by Keanu Reeves. Here, the eponymous John Wick also suffers a traumatic event, but one that actually reminds him of who he is and will continue to be. Of note here is how the nostalgia the audience feels for the actor playing Wick feeds into the perception of the character’s decent into a violent (toxic) form of male identity. “Gothic Nostalgia in Louise Welsh’s The Cutting Room and The Second Cut ”by Martyn Colebrook similarly considers masculinity and a dark underworld of violence, but in this instance it is that of Glasgow in Scotland and one of pornography and male queerness. Here, a form of toxic memory maps queerness into the environment of the city providing a form of continuance through the darkness. Queerness continues in “Toxic Ableism and Gothic Nostalgia in Fanfiction about Mermaids” by Martine Mussies who focuses more fully on audience engagement and fan participation with texts, in this case those featuring mermaids. As uniquely hybrid and queerly disabled creations, the half human, half fish/other, who often have to forgo speech, limbs and movement on land, provides a figure of creativity and empowerment to those producing art and fiction. However, nostalgia plays a vital role in this more-than-human engagement with the other, and as Mussie’s explains, not all of it is as positive as it thinks it is.
The collection ends with Part IV: “Environments” which shifts focus more to the idea of environments exploring how historical, toxic visions of the past can have huge ramifications in how we construct the present in relation to both the individual and national domains. The first essay, “Of
Greed and the Undead Past: Rahi Anil Barve’s Tumbbad as an Exercise in Toxic Nostalgia” by Aparajita Hazra considers the way that the national identity of India continues to be influenced by toxic nostalgia for aspects of its colonial past under the British Empire. More so, it feeds into its own pre-British past to produce monsters that embody the worst of the old world and that of contemporary India. National identity continues in Patrycja Pichnicka-Trivedi’s essay, “Soviet Nostalgia in the Vampire Trilogy A Tale of the Soviet Vampire by Aleksandr Slepakov (2014–18)”. The author considers present-day Russia and its dependence on a certain kind of nostalgia for, what is internally cast, as its Soviet Imperial heyday. Here, Toxic nostalgia is used not only to help keep its own people inline but to facilitate and justify new violent and military aggression across Europe and the world as a means to return to the “good old days”. “Oh No. Not Again!”: Toxic Nostalgia and Antisemitic Recursive Memory in Ghost Stories” by Vicky Brewster also features a form of nationalism, but that as configured antisemitism. Using a familiar feature of this collection, where trauma is used as the instigator of narrative progression, the text chosen uncovers the hidden forms of easy antisemitism within British culture. Nostalgia here is so deeply ingrained within a national culture that it is not aware of its own racist toxicity. This kind of “easy” racism is superseded by full blown far Right extremism in “Extremist Nostalgia: Mike Ma’s Novellas as 21st Century Far-Right Gothic” by Helen Young. In a world seemingly post-#MeToo and BLM, Young describes how the author of two popular self-published novels, purposely utilise negative nostalgia around the erosion of national identity and the replacement of whiteness to promote armed rebellion and the creation of state-size republics across North America.
These final essays bring the book to a close on what seems a rather negative note, though one that maybe all too clearly describes the cultural, historical moment that we are living in. The past, or at least a version of it, is constantly represented as a means to destabilise the present and creating an abtruth environment that is rife with the ghosts of a time when the world was believed to be simpler and more innocent; these spectres from the past have a life of their own that will wreck division and destruction on the future—the “rose” colour of such nostalgia comes not from the distance from which one is looking at it, but rather the unseen blood that was spilt in its original creation. This is clearly seen in such nostalgic imaginaries as the Empire and returning to the “greatness” of the past that ignores the suffering, exploitation, discrimination and murder they
were created upon. This is slightly more complex in relation to examples like Mary Poppins or John Wick which use actual embodiments of the monstrosity of the past to convince the present that they have slain toxic ideologies it represents. Yet, as detailed above, slaying the beast, more often than not, reinforces those exact same kinds of toxicity. Something of this can be seen in relation to the use of toxic nostalgia in recent political debates and ongoing culture wars that rely on the use of imagined histories. The hidden monsters they raise, the spectres of nationalism, genocide and death, can seemingly only be killed by other monsters. But rather than dispelling them, it only gives them affirmation which destabilises the truth of the present even further. As such, it is because of such forms of toxic nostalgia, as listed above, that we can say we truly live in Gothic times—a time where the past is never allowed to die and the future will never truly live. This collection, then, is all the more timely because the results of using such toxic views of the past to gothicise the present are seen and felt in our everyday lives. Consequently then, this collection should be seen as part of an ongoing critique of and conversation about the uses of Gothic nostalgia to reveal where and how it skews cultural discourse and propose ways in which the monsters of the toxic past can be defeated without giving them new life in the process of doing so.
The Pearl of Patience.
CHAPTER I.
MAURICE'S SPELLING LESSON.
"THERE'S the breakfast bell, Maurice."
The little fellow was sitting on the floor, trying to the knot in his shoe, which he had twitched off in haste the before. He looked up as Nurse spoke, with an impatient scowl.
Presently his mamma came from her room and seeing him still undressed, exclaimed,—
"What, Maurice! Not ready yet?"
"I can't untie my shoe, mamma."
She took up the shoe, glanced at the knot, and smiled as she let it fall again.
"I don't think you've tried, my dear. It isn't a hard knot."
"I did try ever so much; but it wouldn't come out of the tangle."
"Shall I do it for him?" asked Nurse, who had almost spoiled the boy by indulgence.
"No, Hannah. He must learn to be patient in conquering these little difficulties, else how will he ever get through the great ones, he will certainly meet in life."
"Come, Maurice, I'm quite ashamed that a boy nearly five years old should sit moping on the floor, when one minute of patient effort would untie your shoe. Nurse, has Cook carried in the coffee and muffins yet?"
"Oh, mamma! Are there muffins for breakfast?"
"Not for tardy boys, certainly. However, I will allow you five minutes to finish your dressing; and as Nurse has given you your bath, and curled your hair, you can easily be ready, if you try."
Maurice caught up his shoe in a hurry, began to twitch and pull; looked as if he was going to cry, but with a sudden thought bent his whole energies to the work, and laughed aloud when it was accomplished.
"I'm glad you didn't help me, Hannah," he exclaimed, joyfully. "I can pull knots out now, just as easy."
"To be sure you can," she answered, giving him a kiss, and hurrying him away to be in time for his favorite muffins.
A few hours later he sat in his little study-chair, his spelling-book open before him, while he was gazing at the cat trying to catch her own tail.
"See, mamma!" he exclaimed, laughing. "Isn't puss silly to run round that way?"
"I have nothing to do with kitty now. She is not in my school," replied the lady, with a smile. "I suppose you can say your lesson very perfectly, as you have time to watch cats."
Maurice blushed and caught up his book.
"F-o-l-l-y, folly," he spelled, in a whisper, then stopped again.
"Mamma, what's the use of learning to spell so many words?"
"Some other time I will explain that," she answered, pleasantly.
"H-o-l-l-y, holly," he went on. "Is that holly that grows on trees?"
"Yes, my dear, it is a small tree or rather shrub."
"I can say my lesson now, mamma." He held out the book.
"Can you spell the word patience?"
"That isn't in my lesson."
"I'm afraid not."
"Why do you say afraid, mamma?"
"Because I want very much that you should learn the meaning of the word; and then perhaps you would try to practise it. Now spell after me, p-a-t-i-e-n-c-e."
"It's hard to remember," he said, with a blush.
"Now for the meaning, Maurice. This morning it meant, 'try, try again to untie your shoe.' Now it means 'study over and over your lesson, not allowing yourself to be weary or diverted from your book, until you have learned it thoroughly.' The Bible speaks of 'patient continuance in well-doing,' and tells us to 'let patience have her perfect work.'"
"I am sorry to say, Maurice, that you are sadly wanting in patience and—"
"Mamma, I did get out the knot," exclaimed the boy, his cheeks crimsoning.
"Yes, at last you applied yourself to the business; if you had done that at first you would have prevented the reproof your papa gave you for tardiness, which he so much dislikes."
Without another word, Maurice set himself to his task with a will. Over and over again he whispered the words, his finger patiently following down the column. Not even when kitty, tired of her play, came to him with a plaintive "meow," did he turn his eyes from his book.
"Well done, Maurice!" exclaimed his mother, who had been watching him with a smile. "I may as well get out the memorandum-book, for I'm sure of having to put down the word perfect this morning."
He stood erect before her, his hands folded behind his back. He had conquered his lesson and was very happy in the thought that he had conquered himself. It was no matter now, whether his mamma went straight on with the words, or commenced at the bottom of the line, or whether she skipped about, he was sure of every syllable.
"It's a pleasure to hear such a lesson as that," said the lady
"I'm going to be patient all the time, mamma," he cried, jumping up and down. "Now I'm going to get my geography."
Every lesson that morning was well learned, and the boy who usually dragged away the whole day at his studies, to his mother's great annoyance, now fairly earned the right to a long recess.
All in the family, from Cook in the kitchen, to Tom the stable-boy, knew by Maurice's bright, happy face, that something unusual had happened, and rejoiced with him in his efforts to learn patience.
CHAPTER II.
MAURICE'S TOOTHACHE.
MRS. SEYTON did not expect that her son would conquer his old habit in a day, nor a week. She truly rejoiced that he had learned even by one day's experience the pleasure and reward of "patient continuance in well doing;" and she encouraged him by every means in her power. Before the close of the week, however, he began to return to his old habit, repeating over and over again, in querulous tones,—
"It's so hard, mamma, I can't learn it. Mamma, this name isn't on the map."
"Have you looked thoroughly?"
"I think I have; but the print is so fine."
Or he would declare half-a-dozen times,—
"I've learned it, mamma; will you please hear me, and let me go and play?"
When the truth was, that he had not given the lesson one moment of real, patient study.
A few weeks after this, Maurice came to his mamma's chamber in the middle of the night, crying with the toothache.
The lady, like a kind mother as she was, instantly arose and applied some balsam to the decayed spot, stuffed in some cotton to keep the air out, took him into her own bed, and told him to try and go to sleep.
But the child was thoroughly roused, and the pain being somewhat relieved, he wanted to talk. His papa and mamma were very sleepy. When he found they did not answer he would cry out again,—
"Oh, my tooth! How it does ache! It's awful bad, mamma!"
"Try to bear it as patiently as you can," urged mamma, softly. "If you keep still, you'll fall asleep and forget the pain. You know papa has to go to town very early to-morrow."
But Maurice did not feel inclined to bear it patiently. He thought his father and mother and the whole family ought to be doing something to make him better: if he couldn't sleep, he thought they ought to keep awake too.
At last, his father, quite worn out with his complaints, went off to another room; his mother sung a soothing lullaby and toward morning he fell into a sound slumber.
"Come, Maurice," said Mr. Seyton, at breakfast, "I'm going to take you into town with me. The dentist will soon cure your toothache."
"Oh, papa!" screamed the boy, holding his face with both hands. "Please don't; it doesn't ache at all, now."
"Let me look at it."
Maurice reluctantly opened his mouth.
"There is a small decayed spot," he said to his wife; "but nothing to make such a fuss about as he did last night. The dentist will either fill it or take it out."
"Pull it, do you mean, papa? Oh, I can't have it pulled!"
"Hush that, now! You made enough noise last night to have a dozen teeth pulled."
"I wont say another word, papa, if it aches again. I'll stay in bed, and try to go to sleep."
"All very fine, I dare say; but I can't risk being kept awake half the night, and made unfit for business by the headache; and there's your mamma too, who sang herself hoarse because you wouldn't put a little patience into exercise; and now her eyes look terribly inflamed, with the gas burning directly in her face. Come, eat your breakfast quick; I'm in a hurry."
The boy's plate was piled with fritters; and he was very fond of syrup on them; but his mamma cautioned him that the sweet might make his tooth ache again.
"I don't believe it will," he exclaimed. "It's all well now."
"Take syrup, if you like," said his father, "but if your teeth aches, don't let us hear a word of complaint."
He had scarcely taken the first mouthful when he gave a shriek, and ran away from the table. He had no appetite for any more cakes, and in a few minutes found himself on his way to town.
CHAPTER III.
KITTY MAYNARD.
ALL that I have about Maurice happened in the spring. Early in the summer he went with his mamma to the country to spend three months with grandma and grandpa Seyton.
Papa's business kept him in the city, but he came down to F— every Saturday night, and promised to try hard for a two weeks' vacation in August.
Almost the first question Mrs. Seyton asked was,—
"How is Kitty Maynard?"
"About the same," was grandma's answer. "She has convulsions nearly every day; but she's the most patient, cheerful creature I ever heard of."
"Who is Kitty Maynard, mamma? And what is the matter with her?"
"I must go and see her to-morrow," remarked the lady, not answering her son. "Indeed I generally make my first visit there."
"The pieces of silk and velvet you sent, did her a world of good," grandma went on. "I believe the cushions and knickknacks she's made of them have brought her in near thirty dollars. Poor thing, you ought to have seen her when I unrolled the bundle and laid 'em out, one by one. You'd have thought she'd had a present of a mine of gold. She worked and worked with her poor deformed hands, trying to hold them up and plan what they'd make, till my heart fairly ached. And all the time not a lisp of complaint or impatience."
"Her happy disposition makes her an object of envy," remarked Maurice's mamma.
"'Tisn't her happy disposition," urged grandpa, coming into the room time enough to hear the last words. "That is, if you're speaking of Kitty Maynard, though, no doubt, a cheerful, even temper does help people to go through trouble. She has something better than that for her support: a spirit of grace in her heart, which enables her to be patient in tribulation, remembering that all her pains are ordered by One who watches over the humblest of His creatures with infinite tenderness."
"Mamma, may I go with you?" asked Maurice eagerly, as the lady was tying on her bonnet the next morning, preparatory to her walk.
"Yes, my dear; and if grandma is willing; we will pick a bouquet of mignonette, roses and verbenas. Kitty always liked flowers."
"Gather as many as you please, Mary," the old lady said, laughing. "I don't know who has a better right, as you send all the plants. Yes, Kitty thinks a deal of a bouquet. I've got a bowl of strawberries too, that Maurice may take if he has a mind."
"What's that in your bundle, mamma?"
"It's a loose gown, made of calico, so that it can be washed. I saw the print in the store and thought it just the thing for Kitty." She untied the bundle and held the robe up for inspection.
It was a neat, tasteful pattern of French calico; a tiny rose and bunch of leaves on a drab ground, trimmed down the front and sleeves with stripes of print to match.
"Just Kitty's style!" said grandma approvingly. "This will be one of her happy days, marked with a white stone, as she calls it."
But the old lady was mistaken. It was one of Kitty's worst days. Ever since light she had been in dreadful convulsions, more severe than she had had for months.
Maurice and his mother walked to the side of the bed through the open door; and no one seemed at leisure to notice them. There lay the poor, deformed girl on a couch in the centre of the small, neat room, at the foot of which her mother sat weeping, while two girls, sisters of Kitty, assisted the doctor in keeping her as much as possible from hurting herself
Maurice grew so pale at the sight of her terrible suffering, her head and feet sometimes knocking together, that his mother whispered him to put his bouquet and strawberries on the table and stay outside till she came.
It was near twenty minutes before she joined him; and then poor Kitty had sunk into a stupor. Maurice glanced timidly in his mamma's face as, just motioning him to follow, she started for home. There was an expression on it which he did not understand.
It was true that Mrs. Seyton was deeply affected at the sight she had witnessed. As she stood there, watching the distorted features, the eyes rolled up in agony, the teeth set, she asked herself,—
"Could I endure such suffering without a murmur? Could I say with a smile of resignation, such as I have often seen her wear, 'It is my Heavenly Father, my best-loved, and longtried friend who sends the chastisement; and shall I not patiently endure what it is his will to afflict?'"
GRANDMA'S SETTING HEN.
"I THOUGHT Kitty Maynard was an old woman, mamma," said Maurice, just before they reached home.
"Kitty is only nineteen years old," the lady answered. "I remember her, when she was as healthy and active as you. Sometime I will tell you her story. Now I feel too sad to talk with you about anything."
"Will she eat the strawberries, mamma?"
"Perhaps so, by and by. Her sister, Hepsey Maynard, told me she was very fond of them, and that they agreed well with her."
"You have made a long call," remarked grandma, as they entered. "I suppose you waited to see Kitty dressed in her new gown."
"No, mother, she didn't know me to-day. I just hung it on a hook in the closet and said nothing about it."
"Is she worse than usual?"
"I have never seen her so dreadfully convulsed. The doctor says she can't endure it long. He has decided to try the effect of a new method of treatment."
Maurice soon ran out to improve his holiday by visiting his favorite haunts around the farm. Ponto, the old dog, was sunning himself in front of his comfortable house, and came lazily forward, blinking his eyes, to meet the little fellow. It was evident, even to the boy, that his days for frolic and fun were over. After a few loving pats and kind words:
"Poor Ponto! Good fellow!" Maurice ran on toward the barn.
Here he found plenty to amuse him. There were a couple of kids with their anxious mother bleating because they were out of her sight. Maurice laughed heartily as he watched their manœuvres. The old goat was tied to a ring in the stall; but the kids, being free to run where they liked, kept her worrying for their safety by hiding beyond the high enclosure, or creeping over a huge pile of straw bedding.
The dinner bell rang twice before he heard it. He could scarcely believe the morning had passed away
"I do like holidays so much," he exclaimed. "I wish, mamma, you'd let me wait till next Monday before I begin my lessons."
Mamma shook her head. "Play as much as you please to-day," she answered pleasantly. "After that, you can decide for yourself whether to linger over your books for six hours or apply yourself vigorously for three."
"Hasn't he outgrown that habit of dawdling over his lessons?" asked grandpa, looking at the boy with an arch smile that brought the blushes to his cheek.
"He'll answer for himself to-morrow," replied the lady.
About four o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Seyton put on her bonnet again, to go to Mr. Maynard's cottage, when Maurice ran in, his apron full of eggs.
"Oh, grandma, see what I've found," he cried, "while I was feeding the fowls. There was a cross old hen setting on 'em, and I had to take a stick and whip her before she'd get off."
"Why, Maurice Seyton, you've spoiled a whole brood of chickens! They'd have been out of the shell in two or three days. It's a terrible pity you touched 'em."
Grandpa then explained to him the danger of disturbing the mother hen when she was hatching her young; and he was so much disappointed that he began to cry
"I never will drive off another hen," he said, winking back his tears. "I do love little mites of chickens, dearly."
His mother gave him permission to accompany her again to see Kitty, and waited while he washed his face and changed his sack.
Kitty lay perfectly quiet, now, her poor, deformed fingers outside the white counterpane. Her transparent skin showed the blue veins in her forehead, but the peace of God was manifest there also
"Had I better go in?" whispered Mrs. Seyton to Hepsey at the door.
"Yes, she knows you've been here, and she'd be disappointed not to see you; but she can't talk much."
Mrs. Seyton walked softly to the bed, followed by Maurice, and bending over the pale sufferer, kissed her cheek.
It was delightful to see the bright flush of pleasure that for one instant beautified Kitty's whole face, then she said feebly,—
"Thank you for coming. Is that your son?"
Maurice feeding Grandma's Fowls.
Maurice shyly gave his hand.
"I am sorry to see you so feeble and languid," began the lady.
"I am seldom so weak as to-day. I have had a comfortable winter on the whole, and so many blessings." These words were uttered with great emphasis, and with a smile.
"God is so merciful," the dear girl went on, "whenever I have worse spasms than usual, he gives me patience to endure them."
"That I am sure of," was Mrs. Seyton's tearful reply
"And then he raises up so many friends for me. Sometimes, in the night, I lie and think of all he has done for me during the past nine years; and I can hardly keep from singing: 'Praise the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his benefits.'"
CHAPTER V. VISIT TO KITTY.
MAURICE had stood during the whole interview, his eyes fastened on the sick girl, fascinated by her sweet smile, and low-spoken words, and at last, when she turned to him and asked,—
"Are you the kind boy who brought me a dinner of strawberries?"
He blushed with pleasure.
As nothing was said about the dressing-gown, Mrs. Seyton did not allude to it, and, fearing to fatigue Kitty, soon rose to leave.
"I'm so glad you've come early this year," murmured the invalid. "It'll be so nice to have you run in every day as you used to."
"She's been counting the days till July," added her sister, eagerly "She thought you'd be here by the Fourth."
"I'll come any time to read to you, if Hepsey will let me know when you are able. It is a favor to me, Kitty, to be with you. We settled that last year, you remember; and Maurice, I'm sure, will love to run of errands for you."
The little fellow scarcely spoke all the way home. What do you suppose he was thinking of? Why, he was wondering how much worse Kitty's pain was than his toothache; and whether she ever had that, and how she learned to bear all her sufferings so patiently. He wondered, too, whether she had to study and do sums. As she lay in the bed she did not look much taller than he, and mamma said she was not a woman but a girl.
"If she does have lessons," he said to himself, "I should like to know whether she can spell better than I can and whether she is always patient in learning them."
Mrs. Seyton noticed that Maurice was very thoughtful, and she hoped the sight of Kitty might do him great good. She resolved to tell him the poor girl's story that very night, as she was sure it would add to his interest and sympathy in her sufferings.
His usual bed hour in the summer was eight; but on this day he had played so hard he was quite ready to accompany his mamma when she called him, soon after supper.
There was a large butternut tree close by the house, so near, indeed, that the branches touched the windows. In a fork formed by two large boughs, a pair of robins had built their nest; and they were just warbling their good-night song to their little ones, when Mrs. Seyton and Maurice approached the window.
For a few moments they stood and listened, and then the lady said,—
"I am going to tell you the story I promised."
"About poor Kitty, mamma?"
"Yes; when I was first married to your father, he brought me here to see his parents. Your uncle George and aunt Lily lived at home then; but now they have homes and families of their own, as your father has. About an hour after we came, we walked to the top of the hill to see the beautiful sunset, and on our way back, a bright, pretty child met us, and timidly held out to me a bouquet of wild flowers. The act was gracefully done, and I eagerly asked,—
"Are these pretty flowers for me?"
"The color crimsoned her cheeks as she answered softly,— 'Yes, ma'am.'"
"'A present to the bride, are they, Kitty?' asked your father, gaily. 'Now let me introduce you, Miss Catherine Maynard, this is my new wife. I shall ask you presently how you like her looks. Mrs. Seyton, this is Miss Maynard, one of my best friends.'"
"Kitty by this time had lost all her shyness, and laughed merrily."
"'He always is so funny,' she said to me, apologizing for her mirth."
"From this time, Kitty and I understood each other well. She was the third and youngest daughter of Mrs. Maynard, but so different from the others, it seemed scarcely possible that she belonged to them. They felt the difference, too, and regarded her with pride as well as affection.
"When we left F— for our own home, Mrs. Maynard promised to let Kitty come and make us a visit during the winter, but she never came."
"Why not, mamma?"
CHAPTER VI.
KITTY'S STORY.
THE lady sat for a few moments with her head resting on her hand, looking so very sad that Maurice dared not interrupt her. She saw his eager face at last, and went on in a hurried manner.
"Late in the fall, Mrs. Maynard's sister came from the West to make them a visit. She had a young babe about ten months old, a lovely child, to whom Kitty soon became warmly attached. The little girl was named Nellie; and they called her playfully, Nellie Bly, like the little song, you know."
"One evening there was to be a concert. The whole family were anxious to go; but there was Nellie to be taken care of. At last Kitty urged them to leave the baby with her. She was ten years old, and though playful as a kitten herself, could be very matronly when she chose."
"'I'll take such nice care of her,' she urged, 'that she will want you to go every evening. I promise you, Aunt Martha, that I wont leave her a minute.'"
"This plan was agreed to at last. Little Nellie Bly was fast asleep in the cradle. Kitty sat by her side knitting a sock for herself; the doors were all fastened except the one from which were going out."
"'There can't possibly be any danger,' exclaimed Mrs. Maynard."
"As they shut the door, Kitty called after them with a laugh, 'If I grow sleepy, I shall get my new book and read a little.'"
"That was the last they saw of Kitty in health. No one could explain what happened; but it was probable that sitting alone for two hours or more, the child grew sleepy, and a spark snapped out of the stove upon her dress. She woke in a fright to find her clothes in a light blaze. She screamed for help, and then tried to put out the fire by rolling on the floor. In the midst of all her fright and pain, she remembered her promise not to leave the baby a minute, and snatching it up from the cradle, she ran half way down the hill to the next house, screaming,—"
"'Fire! Fire! Oh, do help me!'"
"Her parents met her here. Her mother took off her own warm shawl, and folding it tightly about her poor child, quenched the flames. Then her father took her tenderly in his arms,
Martha following with the baby. By the time they reached home, Kitty had fainted.
"There, on the floor, was a magazine, the leaves smouldering away. The cradle-quilt was more than half burned, and still smoking; but, most fortunately, the flames had not extended farther."
"Was Nellie Bly burned too, mamma?" asked Maurice.
"One arm and the side of her neck were sadly scorched. She got well in a few weeks, but died four months later with croup. Kitty was dreadfully burned, her hands especially. She has never since been able to open her fingers. The first convulsion came on the night after the sad accident, and she has never been wholly free from them since. That was nearly nine years ago."
"For a long time the physicians hoped to be able to cure her. Mr. Maynard gave up his trade, and stayed in the house to help take care of his distressed child. Then they sold off, piece by piece, their parlor furniture, using the money to pay the doctors' bills, until at last they became quite poor. The neighbors were all kind, or they must have suffered."
"Her father and mother were almost heart-broken when they were told that Kitty's spasms were incurable. I suppose the poor girl herself would tell you that she was very rebellious and wicked when she gradually came to understand their opinion. To those around her she always seemed thankful for every service, and remarkably patient in enduring her pain."
"She used to cry out when she felt the spasms coming on,—"
"O God, do please help me! Do make me patient! Do, somebody, pray God to make me better!"
"Did God help her, mamma?"
"Yes, he did. He helped her to become submissive to his holy will,—to look beyond this world to her home in Heaven, where there is no sorrow nor suffering; and where the tears are wiped from every eye. He helped her, suffering and feeble as she is, to be the greatest blessing to the whole family, and to many others beside."
"How could she be that, mamma, when she can't get out of bed?"
"I will tell you, Maurice, how she has been a blessing to me. When I first knew her, I used sometimes to think I had great trials. Little things often vexed me. I watched Kitty day by day, bearing her sufferings without a murmur; happy through them all; thanking her Heavenly Father for every moment that she was free from pain. Do you think I could help trying to be patient under my trifling annoyances?"
"Does Kitty have the toothache?" asked Maurice.
"I don't know. Her agony is so much worse than toothache, I don't suppose she would notice it much."
CHAPTER VII.
MAURICELEARNING PATIENCE.
THE visits of Maurice to the cottage were not always as sad as his first one had been. He was there when Kitty lay swinging in her hammock, and was delighted to be trusted to pull the rope softly, since the gentle motion was all she could bear.
He saw her face flush with pleasure as she thanked his mamma for the beautiful dressinggown which her sister had found so mysteriously hanging under an old coat in the closet, and knew no one but dear Mrs. Seyton could have selected a print so exactly to her taste.
He saw her again, raised a little by pillows, her hands busy in forming a thread-case from the bits of silk and leather sorted so neatly in a basket before her.
He heard her as she sang in a low, sweet voice, her favorite hymn:
"Whene'er I take my walks abroad. How many poor I see! What shall I render to my God, For all his gifts to me?
"Not more than others I deserve; Yet God hath given me more; For I have food while others starve, Or beg from door to door."
He heard her, too, when, with eyes partly closed and every nerve quivering with pain, she repeated the sacred words:
"Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
"Take my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy."
"Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
Maurice, though a little boy, observed all this, and one evening his mamma was delighted to hear an addition of this petition to his prayer:
