Merchiston Publishing, 2013, 235 p, plus i p Acknowledgements, iii p iv p Introduction by Yvonne mcCleery, iii p Afterword by Alistair McCleery, ii p About the author, ii p Discussion Questions. First published 1919.

This novel is set on the Home Front during the Great War. David Grant has been invalided out of the Army and has returned home to Castlerig near Edinburgh to convalesce and build himself up. His path crosses with that of the Sutherland sisters, Effie, Nannie, Marion and Jullie.

Marion is unobtrusive and divides men into Bounders (too objectionable,) Selfish Lumps (too absorbed in their conversation to thank you when you passed them tea,) Silly Asses (attempting either to be funny or, worse, sentimental,) Nice Boys (foolish beyond expression) and Dear Old Things (usually friends of Uncle Alexander.) Only her brother Pat was an exception and she realises David Grant too doesn’t fit any of the bills.

Nothing very out of the ordinary occurs in the book: it is a quiet examination of ordinary lives carried on in uncommon circumstances. As soon as David encounters Marion it is obvious where the story will lead but there are complications along the way. “There is nothing more bitter than to have the sweetness of a friendship turned sour by a few interfering words, or the jests of thoughtless outsiders.” However, David’s early thought that “Life is a thing too glorious to be enjoyed” is not borne out except in the circumstances of Nannie’s fiancé’s death in the war and her subsequent attempt to find solace via spiritualism.

This sits somewhat at odds with David’s musings on “the artistic temperament” which he conceives “is a real and wonderful thing; nothing less than the power to understand and love the eternal beauty of the world.” Of course, it is; but the eternal beauty of the world can be an elusive thing to grasp.

The blurb describes Orr as a true hidden gem on the Scottish literary scene. Hidden certainly. I had never heard of her until a recent (though well pre-lockdown) visit to the Scottish Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh; an institution dedicated mainly to Burns, Scott and Stevenson but on one of whose walls was a description of Orr’s career – enough to spur me on to seek her writings out. Unfortunately most are long out of print; and scarce.

Despite being set during the Great War, The Glorious Thing still has a kind of Victorian sensibility – much like the Findlater sisters’ Crossriggs, but better written, and underneath it all, with the prevalence of women in the narrative, a sense of the changes the war wrought.

Pedant’s corner:- Minnie Grant says, ‘Aren’t I swanky?’ (The Scottish form is ‘Amn’t I?) Chambers’ (Chambers’s.) “‘I wonder what be thinks of us’” (what he thinks,) a missing comma before or after a piece of direct speech (a few times,) shrunk (shrank.) “All telegrams do not bring bad news.” (Not true; some telegrams did. What Orr meant was, “Not all telegrams bring bad news,) a speech which was carried over into the next paragraph had an end quotation mark before the paragraph break, “hearts tae break and nine tae sell” (“hearts tae break and none tae sell” makes more sense,) appall (appal.)

(The title page has Mary & Jane Findlater) Virago, 1986, 382 p, plus viii p Introduction. First published 1908.

In Crossriggs, a town an easy train ride from Edinburgh, the locals have always looked up to the inhabitants of the Manse, for many years the preserve of the Maitland family. The present incumbent is not a Maitland but the people still look to Robert Maitland, who has come back to live in the town, for advice. The book, though, mainly focuses on Alexandra Hope (known as Alex) whose father Alexander is an idealistic fruitarian and a bit of a no-hoper, and seems to the reader to have no visible means of support. Through Alex the Findlaters make much of the fact of the family’s poverty (illustrated mostly as a matter of not enough food and money. But these things are relative; they have a kitchen-and-house helper in Katherine, and a drawing room.) Important to the overall story arc is the inhabitant of the local big house, Admiral Casillis, now blind. We are told that nothing much happened in Crossriggs till Alex’s sister Matilda had to return from Canada to her childhood home – with her five children – when her husband died, and the Admiral’s grandson Vanbrugh (Van) came to live with him. But even after this nothing much happens in the text for a long while.

To help support the six extra mouths Alex is of course forced to take a job, a process she finds embarrassing. She undertakes to read to Admiral Casillis every day bar Sundays, for two hours each day, mostly the newspaper. The youthful Van is struck by her and takes to visiting the Hope household on almost a daily basis. He is too young for Alex who strives to avoid confronting his regard for her. A public reading at another big house leads to Alex taking on more readings in town (Edinburgh.) In the meantime she turns down John Reid’s marriage proposal with the excuse to herself that she is too busy and has to provide for her nephews and nieces. It is Maitland, though, who bails out her father from an unwise guarantee and pays for the children’s education. She is of course in love with Robert Maitland who it seems has an equal affection for her but both cannot express it as he is already married. Her affection shows itself in an inability to control her verbal meanderings in his presence.

There are instances where the character’s language reflects the writers’ times. Van expresses dissatisfaction with his grandfather’s treatment of him. Alex replies, “‘If you had to work hard for your living, like me, you’d find you had more to think.’” His riposte is one decidedly not for those sensitive to modern properieties. “‘If I’d been allowed …. to work at anything that interests me, I’d slave like a nigger.’”

We also, twice, have another expression of prejudice. The first is when Alex says to her niece someone is, “‘-a little Jewish. She stopped.’ Sally flushed. ‘Why are Jews so nasty, Aunt Alex?’”

This is not really excused by Alex’s reply. “‘They’re not dear; far from it. An ancient race, the cleverest and noblest in the world in many ways,’” with some added excuse about Jews being an Eastern people and “fond of colour.”
Later we also had, “‘And he’s really not so -’ Matilda paused. Alex …. remarked gently – ‘Semitic, dear, is the word you want.’”

The book suffers a little from us being introduced to too many characters too early, giving the reader little chance to get to know them and hence care about their fates. However, the later appearance of the fateful Miss Orranmore gives us no doubt as to the kind of woman she is. Its main theme is of pride and conformity but like much serious literature Crossriggs treats with love – albeit obliquely and mostly unspoken – and death. Here any sex is resolutely off-stage, or at least only revealed by its usual consequence. Paul Binding’s Introduction says that the Findlaters – who wrote separately as well as together – had early success (Virginia Woolf was among their admirers) but their popularity dropped off in the 1920s. It seems a very Victorian era novel. The thought, “‘You don’t suppose, do you, at your age, that the things one doesn’t speak about are the things one forgets?’” has, however, not lost any of its pertinence.

Pedant’s corner:- On the back cover; Mathilda (in the text it’s Matilda,) Locheanhead (Lochearnhead.) Otherwise; some nineteenth century spellings, repellant (repellent) etc, “from whence” (whence means ‘from where’,) “you mentioned seventeen shillings” (actually two shillings a day = twelve shillings for six days, but Alex had enquired about two and six a day = fifteen shillings,) some missing commas before pieces of direct speech, ramshakle (ramshackle.) Chapter XVIII’s heading is omitted and starts at the top of the page where the other chapters started lower down. These next, with missing letters within words, must have been in the original publication from which this edition looks to have been reproduced, [“every bead twin king” (twinkling,) “rath r” (rather,) Matida (Matilda,) “one f” (one of,) “bo anical” (botanical,) “‘W hear’” (We hear,) “momen ” (moment,) ] “sound asleep more once” (once more,) “Aunt E. V. regarded he with her penetrating glance” (regarded her,) “so that is was not difficult” (so that it was,) Cassilis’ (Cassilis’s,) an opened quote that is never closed.