Arthritis is a metaphor for … something.

Or maybe responses to it are the metaphor? I’ve been rereading, or at least skimming, books by Elizabeth Goudge, an English writer who died in 1974. One of her lesser known works is The Rosemary Tree. I was deliberately looking for it because I remembered the description of a bouquet of flowers from it.

She stood gazing at the bunch of flowers laid on her desk; stubby little snowdrops with the earth still on them, wet primrose, wild white violets, roots and all, some sprays of moss and a few beautiful great purple violets, the whole bound about with a spray of ivy with tiny deep red leaves … arranged … with a sweet wild grace … that delighted her.

The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

I’ve been thinking about descriptions, because I’m trying to write and descriptions can be very important and useful. Or very badly done. A description that is remembered for forty years is probably well-done. Especially since I had forgotten nearly all the rest of the book.

Goudge wrote a lot of books about readjusting relationships, among both individuals and groups. The Damerosehay Trilogy falls into this category. In the Trilogy, Goudge presents different characters from their own viewpoints. When Nadine comes to understand Lucilla’s viewpoint, Nadine changes interiorly.

The Rosemary Tree is a little different. In this book there are quite a few different women whose point of view is expressed and whose actions are at odds with their viewpoint. Some of them are discovering their own deep selfishness for the first time. Some of them do try to change their actions. The daily battle to be kind, to let go of personal selfishness, no matter how you feel, is often lost, both in this book and in real life, even by some of the best characters.

The bouquet whose description was so memorable, went to a teacher who was tormenting a student. It caused a complete change in relationships, beginning with this teacher and this student but spreading out in various ways over the rest of the cast. The story begins earlier than the flower gift, of course, and it takes several more weeks to fully work itself out. I didn’t remember any of the plot, including a Catholic abbot who turns up at an important moment. Nor did I remember pigs.

Most of all I didn’t remember that the book opens with a character who is so crippled with arthritis that she can no longer help around the house where she lives. Rather than doing almost all the work, as she had once, she now has to accept being ‘useless’ and needing help. She can’t even mend clothes for the children of the house, because her hands are as crippled as her legs. She watches life from her window, prays about what she sees, and helps her mistress come to understand the truth of her own life. I found this part fascinating since I am suddenly struggling with arthritis and its insidious effects.

I think The Rosemary Tree really drives home the idea that Goudge was a mystic, and a self-taught but good, theologian. (Her father was a clergyman.) Her characters are great examples of sloth and vanity and pride and humility and a few other vices and virtues. This isn’t a simple book. The internal meditations of the various characters need time to be assimilated, and various plot points hinge on that interior meditation. I’ll be honest. I didn’t slow down. I was looking for the flower description, and after a bit I could see where it was going to happen and skimmed until I reached it. And the description is still lovely.

I have been skimming various writings of Goudge, and considering her detailed descriptions, rather than her theology. She writes a lot of picturesque detail. If you study various passages and try to visualize them there is great beauty. But most of it slips right past me if I’m not deliberately paying attention. That’s why the remembrance of that bouquet description is interesting to me. How did this description capture my attention and others — not so much! Questions…