Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wandering the back rooms of Thrubworth, Alfred Tolland identified some of the found objects: “That oil painting on its side’s the First Jubilee. Very old fashioned in style. Nobody paints like that now.” [BDFR 74/ ] The first jubilee, of … Continue reading →

We have already noted Jenkins’ interest in public monuments like those in St. Paul’s and the tension between his devotion to Modernism and his nostalgia for the unapologetic patriotism of earlier generations.  Now we will turn to more personal memorials. Within a few months, Jenkins … Continue reading →

Jenkins describes Sillery: Perhaps illusorily, his body and face had shrunk, physical contraction giving him a more simian look than formerly, though of no ordinary monkey; Brueghel’s Antwerp apes (admired by Pennistone) rather than the Douanier’s homely denizens of Tropiques, … Continue reading →

In describing his own state of irresolute depression after the war, Nick invokes Robert Burton’s seventeenth century treatise on the condition, The Anatomy of Melancholy.  Nick cites Burton’s own copious descriptors of the magnum opus itself, and then describes its … Continue reading →

After the war, Nick returns to university to write a book about Robert Burton, but finds the return of his memories of undergraduate years oddly depressing.  “The odd thing was how distant the recent past had also become, the army … Continue reading →

On a Sunday in August, 1945, Jenkins accompanied the Allied military attachés to a service of General Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Seated in the south transcept, he surveyed the surrounding “huge marble monuments in pseudo-classical style.” [MP 219/214 ] Recalling … Continue reading →

Jenkins attends an Indian embassy party. “The huge saloons, built at the turn of the century, were done up in sage green, the style of decoration displaying a nostalgic leaning toward Art Nouveau, a period always sympathetic to Asian taste.” … Continue reading →

  Nick’s cohort of officers makes its way across Belgium into Brussels. “When we drove into the city’s main boulevards, their sedate nineteenth-century self-satisfaction, British troops everywhere, made our cortege somewhat resemble Ensor’s Entry of Christ into Brussels, with soldiers, … Continue reading →

At the Grand Hotel in Cobourg, Normandy, Nicholas sees: In the early morning light, the paint on the side walls of the hotel had taken on a pinkish tone, very subtle and delicate, blending gently with that marine vapourness of … Continue reading →

Jenkins writes about the Dutch military attaché Colonel Van der Voort, “whose round florid clean-shaven face looked more that ever as if it peered out of a Jan Steen canvas. Van der Voort was in his most boisterous form, seeming … Continue reading →