[lit-ideas] 'Old Manorial House'

  • From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 09:20:56 EDT

I am reading _Vanessa Bell_ (1879-1961) -- Virginia Woolf's sister -- by  
Frances Spalding (Weidenfeld and Nicolson), and there's this reference to this  
song I don't think I've heard of before. Any lead as to lyricist or composer or 
 year (tune a bonus) welcome. I think I would like like it. The reference is 
in  chapter 14, 'The Attic Studio 1945-1961':
 
     "In old age, as Angelica [Vanessa Bell's  daughter] has 
     written, 'her movements were slow, tentative,  almost 
     enquiring, but immensely dignified'; and  when, as 
     sometimes happened after dinnar at Charleston 
     [Sussex, next to Newhaven, Sussex], she  agreed 
     to sing 
 
                 *the only song she knew* 
 
     [emphasis mine. JLS], the 'Old Manorial  House', 
     'she stood there slightly self-conscious,  noble 
     and yet amused at herself and 
 
                 *the ridiculous words*, 
 
     and we felt a genuine, if hilarious  admiration 
     '(Angelica Garnett, _The Web of Kindness_)". 
     (Spalding, p. 328). 
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 
 

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