Alcott Readathon 2018: Diana and Persis (1878)
Chapter 1: A Pair of Friends
It says friends but I’m shipping the hell out of them. Diana, 28, is a sculptor and partly inspired by Harriet Hosmer, according to Sarah Elbert’s introduction. Percy, 25, is a painter and her mixture of fun-loving and artistic dedication resembles May Alcott. Percy’s only family is her grandmother, while Diana lives alone, “denying herself the pleasures of youth, the honors of sex and beauty, the joys of love, the solaces of home.”
Percy comes to tell Diana that one, she’s rejected her suitor, and two, she’s leaving in a week to study in Paris then Rome. Diana heartily approves of both items. Percy shows her a painting of a lark flying in the sky and Diana says “it is very good!” Grandmother thought the lark should have a nest for a home. Diana disagrees, liking that the bird “does not stoop to fill gaping beaks with worms.” The symbolism needs no explanation.
In Percy’s opinion Frenchman can draw but have no eye for color, while she is good at color but bad at drawing. “I so much admire color, strength and stature in both men and women,” she says. Harold, they’re queer.
They cry and hug as Percy boards her ship.
Chapter 2: Letters
Sept - Percy attends classes at K’s studio for women, which costs more than J’s school for both sexes but is more pleasant. She boards with Anna and Cordelia, a pair of cousins, as May roomed with sisters Kate and Rosa Peckham. Apparently there are 40,000 art students in France.
Nov - The women are enraged over a letter in the newspaper calling out J’s students for “unsexing” themselves. The idea being that women shouldn’t draw from nude models, particularly not in the same room as the men artists. Percy claims that the presence of the women creates “a purer atmosphere.” Okay.
“We are twitted with getting no medals at the Salon,” she writes. “How can we when hitherto we were not allowed to study at the life schools yet expected to do as well in a third of the time and with half the help men have?”
She befriends Miss Cassal, an older woman, a reference to Mary Cassatt. May Alcott once visited Cassatt in France. Percy and Miss Cassal want to start their own school.
Diana asked her about clothes and she responds that she doesn’t think about them one bit. She uses all her money on lessons. Given that Diana doesn’t seem to care much about clothes, I think she asked because she knows Percy cares more.
Dec - A black man models for the class; two American Southerners are “rather scornful” of him and Percy gives them a lecture.
They cook a turkey for Christmas and their friend Durant sends a pie.
Mar - Percy dashes off a still life at home one day and shows it to the master. He tells her to send it to the salon. WTF, she thinks. Anna paints Percy’s portrait.
April - The Salon accepts both, two of 2,000 chosen out of 8,500 submitted. Now I’m even more impressed at May. Percy is still confused why people think “that ordinary little thing” is so great. After visiting the Salon display she decides the painting’s simplicity causes the praise.
Chapter 3: Puck
Diana visits the Pincian Hill in Rome, feeling homesick and thinking of Percy, married now and too busy for friendship. A little boy mistakes her for his aunt and she shows him her sketchbook. His papa is Antony Stafford the sculptor, a name she recognizes. Nino runs off with the book and Antony returns it.
Diana waits for him to visit, wanting his opinion on the statue of Saul. After a week she assumes he forgot, then Nino arrives with flowers, saying he was ill. Antony is very charmed by the sight of Diana playing with his son.
Of the stature he says, “There is virile force in this, accuracy as well as passion - in short, genius.” He offers to have it cast in marble. Her other project is a head of Nino. She adds wings to the shoulders to call it Puck.
I'm still looking for a picture of Saul.
Antony thinks to himself that Diana is like a man and a woman put together, and he doesn’t know which to admire most.
Chapter 4: At Home
Percy writes that her daughter is born, so Diana visits her in Paris. Did Percy skip Rome? It doesn’t say.
August Muller, a Swiss man, plays the violin while Percy sketches baby Diana. Like Bhaer, he uses thee and thy.
“How well and glad and beautiful you look, my Percy,” says Diana. She forgives August for taking her friend away. Percy claims motherhood has hardly interrupted her art, but Diana notes that her paints look dry.
They have lunch - “salad and fruit, hot coffee and delectable rolls and a pot of butter still in its grape leaf fresh from the dairy.” (I include this because I like food history.) And wine, although Percy says it’s kept for special occasions.
Fanchette the maid puts baby to bed and they watch the sunset from the chateau ruins. Diana tells them she wants to visit Switzerland and then Rome. Instead of love she seeks fame. August insists that women can have both - “A man expects them, achieves them, why is not a woman’s life to be as full and free as his?”
Diana isn’t convinced, noting that Percy brought her knitting to the sunset.
At home, August plays from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Percy thinks about what to have for breakfast while Diana wonders if a musician husband might make her happy.
“So they went merrily to bed, and the rivals shook hands with new cordiality as they said ‘Good Night!’”
And that’s where it ends. It is a shame that it’s unfinished - both because I want to read the rest and because May’s death is presumably what led LMA to abandon it. Will Diana fall in love with Antony or will she remain single? I could see either ending.
Later this month: Moods, revised edition.
Edit: I’m starting to think that Harriet Hosmer never made a statue of Saul and people are confusing her with William Wetmore Story’s Saul.
Interestingly, in her introduction to Alternative Alcott (an excellent book), Elaine Showalter suggests that “At Home” is meant to be Chapter 3 and “Puck” is meant to be Chapter 4.
This entry was originally posted at https://nocowardsoul.dreamwidth.org/44211.html
It says friends but I’m shipping the hell out of them. Diana, 28, is a sculptor and partly inspired by Harriet Hosmer, according to Sarah Elbert’s introduction. Percy, 25, is a painter and her mixture of fun-loving and artistic dedication resembles May Alcott. Percy’s only family is her grandmother, while Diana lives alone, “denying herself the pleasures of youth, the honors of sex and beauty, the joys of love, the solaces of home.”
Percy comes to tell Diana that one, she’s rejected her suitor, and two, she’s leaving in a week to study in Paris then Rome. Diana heartily approves of both items. Percy shows her a painting of a lark flying in the sky and Diana says “it is very good!” Grandmother thought the lark should have a nest for a home. Diana disagrees, liking that the bird “does not stoop to fill gaping beaks with worms.” The symbolism needs no explanation.
In Percy’s opinion Frenchman can draw but have no eye for color, while she is good at color but bad at drawing. “I so much admire color, strength and stature in both men and women,” she says. Harold, they’re queer.
They cry and hug as Percy boards her ship.
Chapter 2: Letters
Sept - Percy attends classes at K’s studio for women, which costs more than J’s school for both sexes but is more pleasant. She boards with Anna and Cordelia, a pair of cousins, as May roomed with sisters Kate and Rosa Peckham. Apparently there are 40,000 art students in France.
Nov - The women are enraged over a letter in the newspaper calling out J’s students for “unsexing” themselves. The idea being that women shouldn’t draw from nude models, particularly not in the same room as the men artists. Percy claims that the presence of the women creates “a purer atmosphere.” Okay.
“We are twitted with getting no medals at the Salon,” she writes. “How can we when hitherto we were not allowed to study at the life schools yet expected to do as well in a third of the time and with half the help men have?”
She befriends Miss Cassal, an older woman, a reference to Mary Cassatt. May Alcott once visited Cassatt in France. Percy and Miss Cassal want to start their own school.
Diana asked her about clothes and she responds that she doesn’t think about them one bit. She uses all her money on lessons. Given that Diana doesn’t seem to care much about clothes, I think she asked because she knows Percy cares more.
Dec - A black man models for the class; two American Southerners are “rather scornful” of him and Percy gives them a lecture.
They cook a turkey for Christmas and their friend Durant sends a pie.
Mar - Percy dashes off a still life at home one day and shows it to the master. He tells her to send it to the salon. WTF, she thinks. Anna paints Percy’s portrait.
April - The Salon accepts both, two of 2,000 chosen out of 8,500 submitted. Now I’m even more impressed at May. Percy is still confused why people think “that ordinary little thing” is so great. After visiting the Salon display she decides the painting’s simplicity causes the praise.
Chapter 3: Puck
Diana visits the Pincian Hill in Rome, feeling homesick and thinking of Percy, married now and too busy for friendship. A little boy mistakes her for his aunt and she shows him her sketchbook. His papa is Antony Stafford the sculptor, a name she recognizes. Nino runs off with the book and Antony returns it.
Diana waits for him to visit, wanting his opinion on the statue of Saul. After a week she assumes he forgot, then Nino arrives with flowers, saying he was ill. Antony is very charmed by the sight of Diana playing with his son.
Of the stature he says, “There is virile force in this, accuracy as well as passion - in short, genius.” He offers to have it cast in marble. Her other project is a head of Nino. She adds wings to the shoulders to call it Puck.
I'm still looking for a picture of Saul.
Antony thinks to himself that Diana is like a man and a woman put together, and he doesn’t know which to admire most.
Chapter 4: At Home
Percy writes that her daughter is born, so Diana visits her in Paris. Did Percy skip Rome? It doesn’t say.
August Muller, a Swiss man, plays the violin while Percy sketches baby Diana. Like Bhaer, he uses thee and thy.
“How well and glad and beautiful you look, my Percy,” says Diana. She forgives August for taking her friend away. Percy claims motherhood has hardly interrupted her art, but Diana notes that her paints look dry.
They have lunch - “salad and fruit, hot coffee and delectable rolls and a pot of butter still in its grape leaf fresh from the dairy.” (I include this because I like food history.) And wine, although Percy says it’s kept for special occasions.
Fanchette the maid puts baby to bed and they watch the sunset from the chateau ruins. Diana tells them she wants to visit Switzerland and then Rome. Instead of love she seeks fame. August insists that women can have both - “A man expects them, achieves them, why is not a woman’s life to be as full and free as his?”
Diana isn’t convinced, noting that Percy brought her knitting to the sunset.
At home, August plays from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Percy thinks about what to have for breakfast while Diana wonders if a musician husband might make her happy.
“So they went merrily to bed, and the rivals shook hands with new cordiality as they said ‘Good Night!’”
And that’s where it ends. It is a shame that it’s unfinished - both because I want to read the rest and because May’s death is presumably what led LMA to abandon it. Will Diana fall in love with Antony or will she remain single? I could see either ending.
Later this month: Moods, revised edition.
Edit: I’m starting to think that Harriet Hosmer never made a statue of Saul and people are confusing her with William Wetmore Story’s Saul.
Interestingly, in her introduction to Alternative Alcott (an excellent book), Elaine Showalter suggests that “At Home” is meant to be Chapter 3 and “Puck” is meant to be Chapter 4.
This entry was originally posted at https://nocowardsoul.dreamwidth.org/44211.html