"Words were the only net to catch a mood,
the only sure weapon against oblivion."
Mrs. Miniver
"October...the sparkle of early autumn."
Mrs. Miniver
I watch these old movies every few years on successive nights, trying to devour every tiny decorating detail of her charming house in England.
When I found Struther's book Mrs. Miniver I expected her house to come alive for me. Rats! The row house in the book had been prettied up for the movie. Other than that, the book had many rewards that the movie did not. The book expressed, much more than the movies did, Mrs. Miniver's "feelings" for her house, and that tugged at my heartstrings.
"There was the house, as neat and friendly as ever, facing her as she turned the corner of the square; its small stucco face as indistinguishable from the others, to a stranger as a single sheep in a flock, but to her apart, individual, a shade darker than the house on the right, with one plaster rosette missing from the lintel of the front door."
She reached her doorstep. The key turned sweetly in the lock. That was the kind of thing one remembered about a house; not the size of the rooms or the color of the walls, but the feel of door-handles and light-switches, the shape and texture of the banister-rail under one's palm; minute tactual intimacies, whose resumption was the essence of coming home.
She rearranged the fire a little, mostly for the pleasure of handling the fluted steel poker, and then sat down by it. Tea was already laid; there were honey sandwiches, brandy-snaps, and small ratafia biscuits, and there would, she knew, be crumpets. Three new library books lay virginally on the fender-stool...The clock on the mantelpiece chimed, very softly and precisely, five times. A tug hooted from the river. A sudden breeze brought the sharp tang of a bonfire in at the window...
Mrs. Miniver, with a sigh of contentment, rang for tea.
Like Mrs. Miniver, I too am "a fool about inanimate objects." I simply cannot help loving a certain picture on the wall and the feel of a fork of my wedding silver in my hand. Sometimes our inanimate objects are lost, stolen, or destroyed by fire. Our love for them should not consume us, but I will take every bit of enjoyment and comfort from them while I can, as I will in this 1920 farmhouse that sits sweetly in a Tennessee valley.
Will you join me in welcoming the New Year of the first day of October?
This day is the very essence of coming home!
"Oh, yes, October certainly suited her best...
For her it was always the first, the real New Year.
That laborious affair in January was nothing but a name."
Mrs. Miniver
"Oh, yes, October certainly suited her best...
For her it was always the first, the real New Year.
That laborious affair in January was nothing but a name."
Mrs. Miniver
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