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Pilgrimage #3
Honeycomb
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1917
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About the author
Dorothy M. Richardson
71 books65 followersDorothy Miller Richardson
Richardson was born in Abingdon in 1873. Her family moved to Worthing, West Sussex in 1880 and then Putney, London in 1883. At seventeen, because of her father's financial difficulties she went to work as a governess and teacher, first in 1891 for six months at a finishing school in Germany. In 1895 Richardson gave up work as a governess to take care of her severely depressed mother, but her mother committed suicide the same year. Richardson's father had become bankrupt at the end of 1893.
Richardson subsequently moved in 1896 to Bloomsbury, London, where she worked as a receptionist/secretary/assistant in a Harley Street dental surgery. While in Bloomsbury in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Richardson associated with writers and radicals, including the Bloomsbury Group. H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was a friend and they had a brief affair which led to a pregnancy and then miscarriage, in 1907. While she had first published an article in 1902, Richardson's writing career, as a freelance journalist really began around 1906, with periodical articles on various topics, book reviews, short stories, and poems, as well as translation from German and French. During this period she became interested in the Quakers and published two books relating to them in 1914.
In 1915 Richardson published her first novel Pointed Roofs, the first complete stream of consciousness novel published in English. She married the artist Alan Odle (1888-1948) in 1917 – a distinctly bohemian figure, who was fifteen years younger than she. From 1917 until 1939 the couple spent their winters in Cornwall and their summers in London, and then stayed permanently in Cornwall until Odle’s death in 1948. She supported herself and her husband with freelance writing for periodicals for many years. In 1954, she had to move into a nursing home in the London suburb of Beckenham, Kent, where she died, forgotten, alone and ignored, in 1957.
Richardson was one of a select group of writers who changed the rules of prose fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century. With James Joyce in Ireland, Marcel Proust in France, William Faulkner in the United States and, in England, Virginia Woolf, Richardson invented a new form of writing. She can claim, with Proust and Joyce, to have been at the forefront of a revolution in literature. The first ‘chapter’ of her long work, Pilgrimage, was begun in 1912 - a year before the publication of the first volume of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, two years before the first appearance of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and seven years before Woolf’s first experimental novel Jacob’s Room.
Richardson also published short stories in a variety of periodicals (a collection was published by Virago in 1989) and a handful of poems. She was the author of numerous articles in periodicals such as Adelphi and Vanity Fair. She began her literary career reviewing for the vegetarian journal, Crank. Between 1912 and 1921, she wrote a regular column, ‘Comments by a Layman’, for the Dental Record. She translated eight books into English from French and German. Between 1927 and 1933 she published 23 articles on film in the avant-garde little magazine, Close Up.
Richardson’s aesthetic was influenced by diverse currents of thought. She was part of the alternative, bohemian culture at the turn of the century that embraced vegetarianism, feminism and socialism. Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman made an early impact on her work and one of her first reviews was of a book by the advocate for homosexual rights, utopian socialist, and Whitmanite poet, Edward Carpenter.
If you are interested, please join the Goodreads group on her that can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Richardson was born in Abingdon in 1873. Her family moved to Worthing, West Sussex in 1880 and then Putney, London in 1883. At seventeen, because of her father's financial difficulties she went to work as a governess and teacher, first in 1891 for six months at a finishing school in Germany. In 1895 Richardson gave up work as a governess to take care of her severely depressed mother, but her mother committed suicide the same year. Richardson's father had become bankrupt at the end of 1893.
Richardson subsequently moved in 1896 to Bloomsbury, London, where she worked as a receptionist/secretary/assistant in a Harley Street dental surgery. While in Bloomsbury in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Richardson associated with writers and radicals, including the Bloomsbury Group. H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was a friend and they had a brief affair which led to a pregnancy and then miscarriage, in 1907. While she had first published an article in 1902, Richardson's writing career, as a freelance journalist really began around 1906, with periodical articles on various topics, book reviews, short stories, and poems, as well as translation from German and French. During this period she became interested in the Quakers and published two books relating to them in 1914.
In 1915 Richardson published her first novel Pointed Roofs, the first complete stream of consciousness novel published in English. She married the artist Alan Odle (1888-1948) in 1917 – a distinctly bohemian figure, who was fifteen years younger than she. From 1917 until 1939 the couple spent their winters in Cornwall and their summers in London, and then stayed permanently in Cornwall until Odle’s death in 1948. She supported herself and her husband with freelance writing for periodicals for many years. In 1954, she had to move into a nursing home in the London suburb of Beckenham, Kent, where she died, forgotten, alone and ignored, in 1957.
Richardson was one of a select group of writers who changed the rules of prose fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century. With James Joyce in Ireland, Marcel Proust in France, William Faulkner in the United States and, in England, Virginia Woolf, Richardson invented a new form of writing. She can claim, with Proust and Joyce, to have been at the forefront of a revolution in literature. The first ‘chapter’ of her long work, Pilgrimage, was begun in 1912 - a year before the publication of the first volume of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, two years before the first appearance of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and seven years before Woolf’s first experimental novel Jacob’s Room.
Richardson also published short stories in a variety of periodicals (a collection was published by Virago in 1989) and a handful of poems. She was the author of numerous articles in periodicals such as Adelphi and Vanity Fair. She began her literary career reviewing for the vegetarian journal, Crank. Between 1912 and 1921, she wrote a regular column, ‘Comments by a Layman’, for the Dental Record. She translated eight books into English from French and German. Between 1927 and 1933 she published 23 articles on film in the avant-garde little magazine, Close Up.
Richardson’s aesthetic was influenced by diverse currents of thought. She was part of the alternative, bohemian culture at the turn of the century that embraced vegetarianism, feminism and socialism. Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman made an early impact on her work and one of her first reviews was of a book by the advocate for homosexual rights, utopian socialist, and Whitmanite poet, Edward Carpenter.
If you are interested, please join the Goodreads group on her that can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 4, 2015
This is the third of the Pilgrimage novels. Miriam changes place of work again and becomes a governess for the Corrie family. In contrast to work is her family situation. Her two sisters marry and there are weddings to be endured. There is also the deteriorating mental health of her mother and this does closely reflect Richardson’s experiences with her own mother. It is worth recalling that Richardson was staying with her mother when her mother committed suicide (Richardson had gone out for a walk at the time). This must have had a profound effect and no doubt the working out of this will follow in later novels (the death takes place at the end of the novel). The description here is oblique, but very powerful; random impressions from Miriam, but no description of the death. Her mother’s state of mind is illustrated by this passage;
“It is too late” said Mrs Henderson with clear quiet bitterness, “God has deserted me.” They walked on, tiny figures in a world of huge grey stone. “He will not let me sleep … he does not care.”
Miriam is clearly out of her depth and her sheer inarticulateness in the face of her mother’s misery is a great piece of writing. Richardson is reflecting many years after her own mother’s death and has clearly read Freud and I think there is a classic description of repression of trauma at the end.
I felt that Richardson was now getting into her stride in this third outing. The stream of consciousness sections were more prominent, especially later in the book and there were more gaps in the narrative. Miriam is clearly beginning to reject marriage as an option, having seen her sisters marry and clearly finds men very predictable and boring. The descriptions of life at the Corrie’s are interesting. There is a wonderful and brief vignette when Mrs Corrie and her friends are clearly fascinated by a scandal in London (the Oscar Wilde trial), but will not let the rest of the household into the secret, nor let them see the papers. Miriam finds something of an ally in the house in Mr Corrie, a rather dry and ironic lawyer who recognises Miriam’s sharp mind.
Proust’s masterpiece (and it is a masterpiece) is still at the centre of the literary canon. There is also a great fuss at the moment about Knausgaard’s My Struggle (or My Saga, or Min Camp) novels which describe the minutiae of daily life in detail. He is the current literary darling. Yet it seems to me that women have been writing novels like this for decades. Richardson is a case in point. She is little known outside academic circles and died virtually unknown. They even got her name on her headstone wrong. Her middle name was Miller and on her headstone it says Miriam (I am assuming this was an error, but given that her heroine in Pilgrimage is Miriam, it may be rather an apt one.) This is turning into a brilliant series.
“It is too late” said Mrs Henderson with clear quiet bitterness, “God has deserted me.” They walked on, tiny figures in a world of huge grey stone. “He will not let me sleep … he does not care.”
Miriam is clearly out of her depth and her sheer inarticulateness in the face of her mother’s misery is a great piece of writing. Richardson is reflecting many years after her own mother’s death and has clearly read Freud and I think there is a classic description of repression of trauma at the end.
I felt that Richardson was now getting into her stride in this third outing. The stream of consciousness sections were more prominent, especially later in the book and there were more gaps in the narrative. Miriam is clearly beginning to reject marriage as an option, having seen her sisters marry and clearly finds men very predictable and boring. The descriptions of life at the Corrie’s are interesting. There is a wonderful and brief vignette when Mrs Corrie and her friends are clearly fascinated by a scandal in London (the Oscar Wilde trial), but will not let the rest of the household into the secret, nor let them see the papers. Miriam finds something of an ally in the house in Mr Corrie, a rather dry and ironic lawyer who recognises Miriam’s sharp mind.
Proust’s masterpiece (and it is a masterpiece) is still at the centre of the literary canon. There is also a great fuss at the moment about Knausgaard’s My Struggle (or My Saga, or Min Camp) novels which describe the minutiae of daily life in detail. He is the current literary darling. Yet it seems to me that women have been writing novels like this for decades. Richardson is a case in point. She is little known outside academic circles and died virtually unknown. They even got her name on her headstone wrong. Her middle name was Miller and on her headstone it says Miriam (I am assuming this was an error, but given that her heroine in Pilgrimage is Miriam, it may be rather an apt one.) This is turning into a brilliant series.
March 17, 2016
Now that I am at the end of the first of the four volumes that collect Dorothy Richardson’s ‘Pilgrimage’ sequence of novels, it seems strange that I had ever feared that the ‘stream of consciousness’ of those thirteen novels would be difficult and that one woman’s consciousness would not be enough to fill all of those pages.
I have loved walking through life with Miriam Henderson, sharing in her perceptions and emotions, and appreciating that maturity and experience were helping her to form ideas and steadily grow as a woman in her world. And I have loved seeing Dorothy Richardson grow as a writer, honing her craft, and making each of the first three novels of this saga distinctive and yet still part of the same whole.
‘Honeycomb’ – the third of those three novels – felt to me like a three-volume Victorian novel re-worked, in miniature, for a new and very different age.
The first act opens as Miriam is travelling to take up a new position. She will be the governess to two young children in a country house. One of her sisters had been a governess and had warned Miriam that the life would not suit her, but she had taken no notice and she was happy to be travelling comfortably by coach as spring was coming.
The writing was lovely and there was just a hint of playfulness, maybe acknowledging the books that the younger Dorothy Richardson had read and enjoyed.
Miriam was at ease in the role of governess, and she appreciated the comforts that she had in the household of a wealthy family. She also appreciated being in a family home, missing school life not at all, though she found her position – in between the servants and the family, not belonging to either group – difficult at times, and some of her old awkwardness came back at times like that.
I appreciated how much, and how very naturally, she had grown up over the course of three novels.
She realised that while the women of the family were happy their roles, as wives and mothers, did not interest her at all.
The second act finds Miriam back at home as the Henderson household prepared for the weddings of two of her sisters, Harriett and Sarah. All of the family was caught up in preparations for a joint ceremony and was happy to be drawn in too. But while she is happy for her sisters, and happy to be sharing in their celebrations, she is reflective because she doubts that she will find the things that she hopes life has to offer in marriage, and she expects that her path will be more difficult.
The third act is devastating. Miriam’s mother struggled with her nerves and her health; and it fell to Miriam to accompany her mother on a holiday trip to the seaside. It didn’t help Mrs. Henderson, and it was heart-breaking to understand what was happening through the perceptions of a daughter who was much to far out of her depth to comprehend.
The novel ends with a deep and unexplained grief.
Dorothy Richardson’s handling of those passages is astonishingly good; there could only be one explanation, and she knew that it was something that Miriam could not acknowledge or express.
All of the writing is wonderful; Dorothy Richardson has grown as a writer through the course of her first three novels, finding so many ways to catch Miriam’s consciousness on the printed page, finding the right variations in tone and content to match her different experiences, and tracking the subtle ways in which Miriam changes and grows with those experiences.
I think I may much the same thing already, but I really am so taken with what Dorothy Richardson is doing in this series of books.
If you have an interest in women’s history, or an interest in the evolution of the novel form, then you really should read Dorothy Richardson.
I wish I hadn’t left her books on the shelf for so long, thinking that they would be difficult; they do require close, careful reading to appreciate everything that is there, but they reward that reading so very richly.
A great deal changed in this book for the Henderson family, and I think that there will be significant differences in the next book.
I’m ready to pick it up and start reading.
I have loved walking through life with Miriam Henderson, sharing in her perceptions and emotions, and appreciating that maturity and experience were helping her to form ideas and steadily grow as a woman in her world. And I have loved seeing Dorothy Richardson grow as a writer, honing her craft, and making each of the first three novels of this saga distinctive and yet still part of the same whole.
‘Honeycomb’ – the third of those three novels – felt to me like a three-volume Victorian novel re-worked, in miniature, for a new and very different age.
The first act opens as Miriam is travelling to take up a new position. She will be the governess to two young children in a country house. One of her sisters had been a governess and had warned Miriam that the life would not suit her, but she had taken no notice and she was happy to be travelling comfortably by coach as spring was coming.
The writing was lovely and there was just a hint of playfulness, maybe acknowledging the books that the younger Dorothy Richardson had read and enjoyed.
Miriam was at ease in the role of governess, and she appreciated the comforts that she had in the household of a wealthy family. She also appreciated being in a family home, missing school life not at all, though she found her position – in between the servants and the family, not belonging to either group – difficult at times, and some of her old awkwardness came back at times like that.
I appreciated how much, and how very naturally, she had grown up over the course of three novels.
She realised that while the women of the family were happy their roles, as wives and mothers, did not interest her at all.
The second act finds Miriam back at home as the Henderson household prepared for the weddings of two of her sisters, Harriett and Sarah. All of the family was caught up in preparations for a joint ceremony and was happy to be drawn in too. But while she is happy for her sisters, and happy to be sharing in their celebrations, she is reflective because she doubts that she will find the things that she hopes life has to offer in marriage, and she expects that her path will be more difficult.
The third act is devastating. Miriam’s mother struggled with her nerves and her health; and it fell to Miriam to accompany her mother on a holiday trip to the seaside. It didn’t help Mrs. Henderson, and it was heart-breaking to understand what was happening through the perceptions of a daughter who was much to far out of her depth to comprehend.
The novel ends with a deep and unexplained grief.
Dorothy Richardson’s handling of those passages is astonishingly good; there could only be one explanation, and she knew that it was something that Miriam could not acknowledge or express.
All of the writing is wonderful; Dorothy Richardson has grown as a writer through the course of her first three novels, finding so many ways to catch Miriam’s consciousness on the printed page, finding the right variations in tone and content to match her different experiences, and tracking the subtle ways in which Miriam changes and grows with those experiences.
I think I may much the same thing already, but I really am so taken with what Dorothy Richardson is doing in this series of books.
If you have an interest in women’s history, or an interest in the evolution of the novel form, then you really should read Dorothy Richardson.
I wish I hadn’t left her books on the shelf for so long, thinking that they would be difficult; they do require close, careful reading to appreciate everything that is there, but they reward that reading so very richly.
A great deal changed in this book for the Henderson family, and I think that there will be significant differences in the next book.
I’m ready to pick it up and start reading.
February 21, 2025
This is also a very good novel about really liking cigarettes
Read
March 22, 2022Three down. Ten to go!
April 22, 2017
Last week finished Honeycomb. Richardson’s one of those rare discoveries that makes my heart sing, and I feel real excitement and anticipation on getting on with The Tunnel next, the fourth in her series. Her method, of stream of consciousness/internal monologue - entirely without lapsing into omniscience or other’s views - so very much chimes with my sensibilities, and my experience of the world, and how I describe it to myself. I sheepishly admit to having written a bunch of chapters of a novel a few years back, which I return to occasionally - and my approach is so similar (although quite insipid in comparison) - it feels very encouraging - confirming. It reminds me of how in my painting days I could get so excited by a painting (Ivon Hitchens, or Diebenkorn, for instance) and I would become flushed and short of breathe. This happens with Richardson, sometimes. Maybe I'll dig out my own scribblings again.
At the end of Honeycomb, there is a startling subtle and oblique description of the protagonist's mother's suicide (the work is largely autobiographical, and the real life event is shocking). There is no direct description of the event. Only the lead up to it (the exasperation, worry, anxiety, fed-upness, anger with her mother), followed by a short impressionistic passage of her feelings after the event - very very powerful.
At the end of Honeycomb, there is a startling subtle and oblique description of the protagonist's mother's suicide (the work is largely autobiographical, and the real life event is shocking). There is no direct description of the event. Only the lead up to it (the exasperation, worry, anxiety, fed-upness, anger with her mother), followed by a short impressionistic passage of her feelings after the event - very very powerful.
October 22, 2017
The third installment of DMR’s Volume 1 installment begins on a high note. That distinct inward monologue is so reticent bearing in mind the story is told in the third person.
I think it is a brilliant way to write an autobiography and the inward reflection is a way of the author wanting you to find out what she was going through in her life. Not to mistake it with writing a life story, it is well known that she intended for this to be read when she was not alive. The art involved in painting this picture through Miriam is on a very high level of conception.
Being conscious to Miriam was sort of an experience in itself, let alone the interactions with people and with open spaces. I have not even mentioned how she describes rooms and everything inside the room. There is also music, religion, art, intelligent conversations that sort of prime us to what kind of life the author lived. It is not hard to see Miriam’s life as a sort of a reflection to Dorothy M. Richardson's (DMR’s) life. This makes you want to read the book to find out more about the author than Miriam.
Look how a Villa is described and left to self interpretation.... “In a dull cheap villa there might be a bunch of violets in a bowl on a whatnot.”
There is a way stars were used as a figure of speech in one intelligent conversation that was going on between Melie, Mrs. Craven and Mrs. Corrie; Julia opines that one is not to be married if one is not under the stars and that you will only marry if you are under the star. I think that was such a blanket statement. This breaks off to a long conversation as to why men need not be handsome...concluding that " A handsome man's much handsomer than a pretty woman," and that "I think a handsome man's generally so weak." I will just leave this one here....
In her writing, Dorothy seemed to lay a huge emphasis on how Germans were better at music and poetry when compared to the English. If for a moment we pause and reflect the period at which she was writing this.... it must have been at a time those two nations were at war. Funny how she objectively looked at it although being English... “ No English person would quite understand—the need, that the Germans understood so well—the need to admit the beauty of things . . . the need of the strange expression of music, making the beautiful things more beautiful and of words when they were together in the beauty of the poems.” Something about England – Something hard.
About men, it seemed throughout the book that men were on the receiving end..at some point I thought that there was a feminist theme going on in the book. Sure without doubt, I would not blame the narrator given the environment she was in. There was nothing like equality back then. At a table look at how it is described... “Miriam's first sense of dining and when she found herself seated at Mr. Corrie's left hand opposite Mrs. Craven, with Joey away on her left, facing Mr. Craven and Mrs. Corrie now far away from her at the door end of the table, it seemed as if these things had been got together only for the use of the men.”
Here is another passage talking about men... “If a man doesn't understand or doesn't agree he's just a blank bony conceitedly thinking, absolutely condemning forehead, a face below, going on eating—and going off somewhere. Men are all hard angry bones ; always thinking something, only one thing at a time and unless that is agreed to, they murder.“
And another still about men ... “men's minds, staring at things, ignorantly, knowing everything in an irritating way and yet ignorant.”
More slime for men... “the sort of man who would look after a woman properly, but would never know anything about her.”
Look at this... “I expect that most men are the average manly man with the average manly faults."
A most vitriolic attack... “Adam had not faced the devil. He was stupid first, and afterwards a coward and a cad . . ."the divine curiosity of Eve. . . ." Some person had said that. . . . Perhaps men would turn round one day and see, what they were like. Eve had not been unkind to the devil ; only Adam and God. All the men in the world, and their God, ought to apologise to women. . . .”
On books, I noticed that one particular book kept appearing “A human Document” For some strange reason; I was drawn to how after having read the book...some reflection took place... it means that that book must have surely had an impact upon reading. There are examples upon examples of how reading can become addictive in “honeycomb”....here is an example...
“reading passages here and there ; feeling them come nearer to her than anything she had read before. She knew at once that she did not want to read the book through ; that it was what people called a tragedy, that the author had deliberately made it a tragedy”
It gets to a point that a book reader is biased to the kind of books she reads and how she reads them.. “She felt that she could look at the end, and read here and there a little and know ; know something, something they did not know. People thought it was silly, almost wrong to look at the end of a book. But if it spoilt a book, there was something wrong about the book. If it was finished and the interest gone when you know who married who, what was the good of reading at all ? It was a sort of trick, a sell.” In summary a book should be like a puzzle... and that if you found it out before reading the book, something was wrong about the book. This is deep! The “stronger” the author was, the more came..
It is interesting to read books as a psychological study of the author . . . It means never being able to agree with people about books, allowing things coming to you out of books...knowing absolutely everything about the author. Look at books as people? To read books such that... ”you felt the writing, felt the sentences as if you were writing them yourself?”
Moral writers were put on the threshing floor... ”A moral writer only sees the mote in his brother's eye. And you see him seeing it.” That letter to Eve was deep.
A lot was said about masculine and feminine worldliness.
What is the meaning of a man playing cards on his death bed?
The love of God defined – “The love of God was like the love of a mother ; always forgiving you, ready to die for you, always waiting for you to be good. Why ? It was mean.”
Phrase
“Surprise had kept her thoughtless and rapt.”
“swift flountering “
“I'm deadly keen.”
" You look a duck,"
“a fussy emphatic handshake”
“ritual of the feast.”
“of unnaturally even teeth.”
“a little air of deference”
" She doesn't care a rap about him”
“vexed incredulity.”
“the astonishingness of everything.”
" The vagaries of the Fair”
..." the unaccountability of women '
“Strange harmonising radiance. “
“frontage of fawning and flattery.”
“mocking, obsequious, patronising manner.”
“just sneery and silly.”
" Will you people leave off squabbling and just see if this is all right before I nail it up?"
“impudently patronising”
“woolly pungency of new felting.”
“Rascality of the Genus Homo .”
“a great deal of stiff politeness.”
“The flump-wash of the waves”
“the uselessness of attendants.”
Stream of consciousness
“For a moment she was conscious of nothing but the soft-toned, softly lit interior, the softness at her back, the warmth under her feet and her happy smile ; then she felt a sudden strength ; the smile coming straight up so unexpectedly from some deep where it had been waiting,”
“the bright teeth of a grand piano running along the edge of its darkness, a cataract of light pouring down its raised lid ; forests of hats ; dresses, shining against darkness, bright headless crumpling stalks ; sly, silky, ominous furs ; metals, cold and clanging, brandishing the light; close prickling fire of jewels”
“They were so dreadful; the gospels full of social incidents and reproachfulness. They seemed to reproach everyone and to hint at a secret that no one possessed . . . the epistles did nothing but nag and threaten and probe. St. Paul rhapsodised sometimes. . . . but in a superior way . . . patronising ; as if no one but himself knew anything. . . .”
Art
“strange pictures hung low, on a level with your eyes, strange soft tones”
“. . . two things about soup besides taking it from the side of your spoon, which everybody knows—you eat soup, and you tilt your plate away, not towards you (chum along, chum along and eat your nice hot soup).”
“The soles of her new patent leather shoes felt pleasantly smooth against the thick carpet. “
Descriptive
“She found a bulging copper hot-water jug, brilliantly polished, with a wicker-covered handle.”
“a door opened upon warm brilliance.”
“and cold in the morning light pouring through an undraped window.”
“Miriam glanced at the solicitous droop of her long figure.”
“Sybil could sing without the piano with an extraordinary flourishing rapidity, pirouetting as she sang,”
“Sinking into the second arm-chair she crossed her knees and beamed into the fire.”
“The wind snored round the house like a flame and bellowed in the chimneys.“
“His figure had a curious crooked jaunty appearance, the shoulders a little crooked and the little legs slightly bent.”
“. . . the quiet grass, the scattered deer, the kindly trees, the gentlemen with triumphant faces, running after him;”
“ the one who gets last into a hansom by slipping into the near corner.”
“in a mauve and white drawing-room, reclining on a mauve and white striped settee in a pale mauve tea gown.”
“the gentle angular explosion of pieces into a new relation and the breaking of the varying triangle as a ball rolled to its hidden destination held by all the eyes in the room until its rumbling pilgrimage ended out of sight in a soft thud.”
“Everything was airy and transparent.”
Quotable
“people being together is awful ; like the creaking of furniture.”
“Nan Babington said no one need mind being twenty-one if they were engaged, but if not it was a frantic age to be.”
" A handsome man's much handsomer than a pretty woman,"
"I think a handsome man's generally so weak."
"I can read all your thoughts. None of you can disturb my enjoyment of this excellent dinner ; none of you can enhance it"
“We’re not descended from monkeys at all. It's not natural,"
" The great thing Darwin did," said Miriam abruptly, " was to point out the power of environment in evolving the different species—selecting."
" The great man's always at work, always at work,"
“ I don't read books for the story, but as a psychological study of the author . . .”
“I prefer books to people " ..." I know now why I prefer books to people."
“the chanciness of everything.”
"ideals," the sense of modern reforms,”
"you can only really see the country when you are not moving yourself."
“Men ought not to be told. They must find it out for themselves. To dress up and try to make it something to attract somebody.”
“Men's ideas were devilish; clever and mean. . . . Was God a woman? Was God really irritating?”
The deepest thing I read in the book..... “He knew, in some strange way men knew there were gardens everywhere, not always visible. Women did not seem to know. . . .”
..." Superior women don't marry,"
"It's so awfully silly not to have a plan.”
“Genius . . . genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. Capacity.”
“ a woman never knows her own mind.”
“Families ought to laugh together whenever there was any excuse.”
"Lawyers can get people to admit anything,"
"Lawyers are the most ignorant, awful people."
..." the tragedy of beauty ; woman's greatest curse."
Simile
“Mrs. Craven gazed up . . . like a distressed fish”
“ Mrs. Corrie was alone, like an aspen shaking its leaves in windless air.”
Contrast
“A candle-lit room in the midst of bright day . . . wonderful, like a shrine.”
Fishing and poetry - "It's only the fisherman who knows anything, anything whatever about the silver stream. Necessarily. Necessarily. It is the—the concentration, the—the absorption of the passion that enables him to see. Er, the fisherman, the poet tantamount; exchangeable terms. Fishing is, indeed one might say"
No doubt a worthy read!
I think it is a brilliant way to write an autobiography and the inward reflection is a way of the author wanting you to find out what she was going through in her life. Not to mistake it with writing a life story, it is well known that she intended for this to be read when she was not alive. The art involved in painting this picture through Miriam is on a very high level of conception.
Being conscious to Miriam was sort of an experience in itself, let alone the interactions with people and with open spaces. I have not even mentioned how she describes rooms and everything inside the room. There is also music, religion, art, intelligent conversations that sort of prime us to what kind of life the author lived. It is not hard to see Miriam’s life as a sort of a reflection to Dorothy M. Richardson's (DMR’s) life. This makes you want to read the book to find out more about the author than Miriam.
Look how a Villa is described and left to self interpretation.... “In a dull cheap villa there might be a bunch of violets in a bowl on a whatnot.”
There is a way stars were used as a figure of speech in one intelligent conversation that was going on between Melie, Mrs. Craven and Mrs. Corrie; Julia opines that one is not to be married if one is not under the stars and that you will only marry if you are under the star. I think that was such a blanket statement. This breaks off to a long conversation as to why men need not be handsome...concluding that " A handsome man's much handsomer than a pretty woman," and that "I think a handsome man's generally so weak." I will just leave this one here....
In her writing, Dorothy seemed to lay a huge emphasis on how Germans were better at music and poetry when compared to the English. If for a moment we pause and reflect the period at which she was writing this.... it must have been at a time those two nations were at war. Funny how she objectively looked at it although being English... “ No English person would quite understand—the need, that the Germans understood so well—the need to admit the beauty of things . . . the need of the strange expression of music, making the beautiful things more beautiful and of words when they were together in the beauty of the poems.” Something about England – Something hard.
About men, it seemed throughout the book that men were on the receiving end..at some point I thought that there was a feminist theme going on in the book. Sure without doubt, I would not blame the narrator given the environment she was in. There was nothing like equality back then. At a table look at how it is described... “Miriam's first sense of dining and when she found herself seated at Mr. Corrie's left hand opposite Mrs. Craven, with Joey away on her left, facing Mr. Craven and Mrs. Corrie now far away from her at the door end of the table, it seemed as if these things had been got together only for the use of the men.”
Here is another passage talking about men... “If a man doesn't understand or doesn't agree he's just a blank bony conceitedly thinking, absolutely condemning forehead, a face below, going on eating—and going off somewhere. Men are all hard angry bones ; always thinking something, only one thing at a time and unless that is agreed to, they murder.“
And another still about men ... “men's minds, staring at things, ignorantly, knowing everything in an irritating way and yet ignorant.”
More slime for men... “the sort of man who would look after a woman properly, but would never know anything about her.”
Look at this... “I expect that most men are the average manly man with the average manly faults."
A most vitriolic attack... “Adam had not faced the devil. He was stupid first, and afterwards a coward and a cad . . ."the divine curiosity of Eve. . . ." Some person had said that. . . . Perhaps men would turn round one day and see, what they were like. Eve had not been unkind to the devil ; only Adam and God. All the men in the world, and their God, ought to apologise to women. . . .”
On books, I noticed that one particular book kept appearing “A human Document” For some strange reason; I was drawn to how after having read the book...some reflection took place... it means that that book must have surely had an impact upon reading. There are examples upon examples of how reading can become addictive in “honeycomb”....here is an example...
“reading passages here and there ; feeling them come nearer to her than anything she had read before. She knew at once that she did not want to read the book through ; that it was what people called a tragedy, that the author had deliberately made it a tragedy”
It gets to a point that a book reader is biased to the kind of books she reads and how she reads them.. “She felt that she could look at the end, and read here and there a little and know ; know something, something they did not know. People thought it was silly, almost wrong to look at the end of a book. But if it spoilt a book, there was something wrong about the book. If it was finished and the interest gone when you know who married who, what was the good of reading at all ? It was a sort of trick, a sell.” In summary a book should be like a puzzle... and that if you found it out before reading the book, something was wrong about the book. This is deep! The “stronger” the author was, the more came..
It is interesting to read books as a psychological study of the author . . . It means never being able to agree with people about books, allowing things coming to you out of books...knowing absolutely everything about the author. Look at books as people? To read books such that... ”you felt the writing, felt the sentences as if you were writing them yourself?”
Moral writers were put on the threshing floor... ”A moral writer only sees the mote in his brother's eye. And you see him seeing it.” That letter to Eve was deep.
A lot was said about masculine and feminine worldliness.
What is the meaning of a man playing cards on his death bed?
The love of God defined – “The love of God was like the love of a mother ; always forgiving you, ready to die for you, always waiting for you to be good. Why ? It was mean.”
Phrase
“Surprise had kept her thoughtless and rapt.”
“swift flountering “
“I'm deadly keen.”
" You look a duck,"
“a fussy emphatic handshake”
“ritual of the feast.”
“of unnaturally even teeth.”
“a little air of deference”
" She doesn't care a rap about him”
“vexed incredulity.”
“the astonishingness of everything.”
" The vagaries of the Fair”
..." the unaccountability of women '
“Strange harmonising radiance. “
“frontage of fawning and flattery.”
“mocking, obsequious, patronising manner.”
“just sneery and silly.”
" Will you people leave off squabbling and just see if this is all right before I nail it up?"
“impudently patronising”
“woolly pungency of new felting.”
“Rascality of the Genus Homo .”
“a great deal of stiff politeness.”
“The flump-wash of the waves”
“the uselessness of attendants.”
Stream of consciousness
“For a moment she was conscious of nothing but the soft-toned, softly lit interior, the softness at her back, the warmth under her feet and her happy smile ; then she felt a sudden strength ; the smile coming straight up so unexpectedly from some deep where it had been waiting,”
“the bright teeth of a grand piano running along the edge of its darkness, a cataract of light pouring down its raised lid ; forests of hats ; dresses, shining against darkness, bright headless crumpling stalks ; sly, silky, ominous furs ; metals, cold and clanging, brandishing the light; close prickling fire of jewels”
“They were so dreadful; the gospels full of social incidents and reproachfulness. They seemed to reproach everyone and to hint at a secret that no one possessed . . . the epistles did nothing but nag and threaten and probe. St. Paul rhapsodised sometimes. . . . but in a superior way . . . patronising ; as if no one but himself knew anything. . . .”
Art
“strange pictures hung low, on a level with your eyes, strange soft tones”
“. . . two things about soup besides taking it from the side of your spoon, which everybody knows—you eat soup, and you tilt your plate away, not towards you (chum along, chum along and eat your nice hot soup).”
“The soles of her new patent leather shoes felt pleasantly smooth against the thick carpet. “
Descriptive
“She found a bulging copper hot-water jug, brilliantly polished, with a wicker-covered handle.”
“a door opened upon warm brilliance.”
“and cold in the morning light pouring through an undraped window.”
“Miriam glanced at the solicitous droop of her long figure.”
“Sybil could sing without the piano with an extraordinary flourishing rapidity, pirouetting as she sang,”
“Sinking into the second arm-chair she crossed her knees and beamed into the fire.”
“The wind snored round the house like a flame and bellowed in the chimneys.“
“His figure had a curious crooked jaunty appearance, the shoulders a little crooked and the little legs slightly bent.”
“. . . the quiet grass, the scattered deer, the kindly trees, the gentlemen with triumphant faces, running after him;”
“ the one who gets last into a hansom by slipping into the near corner.”
“in a mauve and white drawing-room, reclining on a mauve and white striped settee in a pale mauve tea gown.”
“the gentle angular explosion of pieces into a new relation and the breaking of the varying triangle as a ball rolled to its hidden destination held by all the eyes in the room until its rumbling pilgrimage ended out of sight in a soft thud.”
“Everything was airy and transparent.”
Quotable
“people being together is awful ; like the creaking of furniture.”
“Nan Babington said no one need mind being twenty-one if they were engaged, but if not it was a frantic age to be.”
" A handsome man's much handsomer than a pretty woman,"
"I think a handsome man's generally so weak."
"I can read all your thoughts. None of you can disturb my enjoyment of this excellent dinner ; none of you can enhance it"
“We’re not descended from monkeys at all. It's not natural,"
" The great thing Darwin did," said Miriam abruptly, " was to point out the power of environment in evolving the different species—selecting."
" The great man's always at work, always at work,"
“ I don't read books for the story, but as a psychological study of the author . . .”
“I prefer books to people " ..." I know now why I prefer books to people."
“the chanciness of everything.”
"ideals," the sense of modern reforms,”
"you can only really see the country when you are not moving yourself."
“Men ought not to be told. They must find it out for themselves. To dress up and try to make it something to attract somebody.”
“Men's ideas were devilish; clever and mean. . . . Was God a woman? Was God really irritating?”
The deepest thing I read in the book..... “He knew, in some strange way men knew there were gardens everywhere, not always visible. Women did not seem to know. . . .”
..." Superior women don't marry,"
"It's so awfully silly not to have a plan.”
“Genius . . . genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. Capacity.”
“ a woman never knows her own mind.”
“Families ought to laugh together whenever there was any excuse.”
"Lawyers can get people to admit anything,"
"Lawyers are the most ignorant, awful people."
..." the tragedy of beauty ; woman's greatest curse."
Simile
“Mrs. Craven gazed up . . . like a distressed fish”
“ Mrs. Corrie was alone, like an aspen shaking its leaves in windless air.”
Contrast
“A candle-lit room in the midst of bright day . . . wonderful, like a shrine.”
Fishing and poetry - "It's only the fisherman who knows anything, anything whatever about the silver stream. Necessarily. Necessarily. It is the—the concentration, the—the absorption of the passion that enables him to see. Er, the fisherman, the poet tantamount; exchangeable terms. Fishing is, indeed one might say"
No doubt a worthy read!
May 20, 2018
4,5 stars.
November 11, 2025
I'm done here. The first novel was interesting and the prose delicious, but the baseless superiority of the main character to all those around her that first reared its ugly head in Pointed Roofs has become obnoxious in the extreme in Honeycomb. Things started out well, with the comforting prose that I enjoyed so much in the first volume, but about halfway along there is no real plot, just the main character sitting in judgement on her employers and their friends. She was apparently unaware that most governesses were not allowed to join the adult meals and parties, being neither gentry nor servant but something in between. Most governesses were expected to stay with their charges or live off site. By the halfway point any story is subsumed in her pseudophilosophical elucubrations. This is even more ironic given her repeated admission that she has no idea what she's doing and isn't really a teacher at all. Not only can I not bear any more of her, I don't want to.
September 9, 2024
3.5 stars. This character based book can be read as a standalone but it is preferable to read the ‘Pilgrimage’ series chronologically as the novels follow Miriam’s life. In ‘Painted Roofs’, the first in the series, Miriam is a young English girl who travels to Germany to teach English at a German girls school. Book two is about Miriam’s teaching experience in a North London school in the 1890s.
In this novel,Miriam becomes the governess for the Corrie family. Miriam’s two sisters are engaged to be married. Miriam reflects on her future and whether she will marry.
This book was first published in 1917 and is the third novel in the 13 book ‘Pilgrimage’ series.
In this novel,Miriam becomes the governess for the Corrie family. Miriam’s two sisters are engaged to be married. Miriam reflects on her future and whether she will marry.
This book was first published in 1917 and is the third novel in the 13 book ‘Pilgrimage’ series.
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April 19, 2020I do feel from time to time that I would like to bring Miriam Henderson and Proust’s Marcel together. In both cases, there is a remarkable delineation of the processes of a mind; in both cases, I’m not sure I really like the mind that’s being delineated. Put another way, I have relatively little patience for the many things that obsess these characters and I feel, often, that each needs a good push.
March 16, 2022
With this third volume of Pilgrimage, one senses that Richardson is solidifying her voice.
September 12, 2023
Truly loved it. Sad ending, but life (pilgrimage) goes on.
May 15, 2010
[These notes were made in 1992:]. Book 3 of Pilgrimage. Miriam becomes a governess in the luxurious home of the monied Corries. Here she finds the kind of comfortable life - a life full of gleaming, polished surfaces - she has always felt herself entitled to. Yet she is aware that she is there on rather fraudulent terms, not being a true educator. She also encounters a few more possible role models for life as a woman - the rich women in Mrs. Corrie's circle. While some of them have surfaces that attract her, she soon finds herself despising the poverty of their inner life, and their hypocrisy. She feels far more akin to Mr. Corrie, the dry quiet lawyer who sits alone in his room and ironically watches the womenfolk. The other element in Miriam's life (although it does not work as a contrast in the same way as in Backwater) is the doings of her family. Two of her sisters (including her favourite, Harriett) get married, and that is the source of much reflection to Miriam. Much more devastating, however, is the degeneration of her mother's nerves and health. Miriam accompanies her mother on a holiday trip to the seaside, but it does not help the beleaguered Mrs. Henderson to sleep. I must admit this section, given my own history, worked most painfully on me, even though it was told through the eyes and senses of the uncomprehending Miriam. The novel ends with a burst of unexplained grief which, we can only assume, means that Miriam's mother has died. There were one or two interesting allusions in this book, which placed it rather more firmly in time than one is used to. The allusions, which Miriam picks up from Mrs. Corrie, are to Oscar Wilde's brilliant theatrical success and the subsequent scandal of his trials. '"It's the most awful thing there is. It's in the Bible," said Mrs. Corrie and fled into the house.' Miriam's feminism, or perhaps more accurately, her misandry, grows stronger in this book; her objections to men's patronizing, oversimplified view of life and especially of women, are more acutely expressed. All this notwithstanding her exceeding wariness of the ways of her own sex, and her liking for certain individual men. She also takes to expressing her independence by smoking, which was doubtless quite shocking in the 1890s, less so by the time the novel was published.
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