Wild Muse Notes

Now this was a lot of fun to discover. I purchased an old leather sewing kit. It was in excellent shape and apparently had nothing inside it except a rusty threaded needle and brown paper padding at the bottom. However, there was something quite interesting and well hidden wrapped in that plain brown paper.

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Mixed media art by Mother Nature in fungus on tree bark. Found in our wood pile and almost tossed into the fire.

“We now come to a beautiful and loquacious race of animals, that embellish our forests, amuse our walks, and exclude solitude from our most shady retirements. From there man has nothing to fear, their pleasures, their desires, and even their animosities, only serve to enliven the general picture of Nature, and give harmony to meditation.”

Yet another lovely and very old book I recently added to my collection is the third volume of Oliver Goldsmith’s An History of the Earth and Animated Nature which although available online through the much appreciated resources of the Internet Archive has unique and unmatched appeal as an actual object aside from reading, at least in my opinion, always being much more enjoyable from the page than it is from the screen.

The copy in my hands was published and bound in 1795. It has a badly deteriorated binding and cracked spine with it’s pages intact although a few are loose. On the opposite page of all illustration plates, there is an intriguing left impression of ghost images which have faded to a pleasing sepia tone and are really quite beautiful in their own right. I’ve always loved the language in which natural history book of this period are written and that this author refers to various species of animal as “their kind.” Various kinds of bird and amphibious creature are covered in the present volume.

Here is a passage on the Dodo. The author writes as though this species is still around at the time of publication. Whether that is true or not, his description gives some indication as to the reason for the poor bird’s past or future extinction. I’ve included photographs of the text. Larger more readable versions of all pictures are viewed by clicking through to my flickr account.

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I found this Victorian Era copy of Undine by Friedrich de La Motte Fouque in the toss away bin on one of my recent book hunts. This copy, published in 1897, is illustrated by Rosie M. M. Pitman. The cover and binding are water damaged but the pages and pictures are in pretty good shape. It appears to be unread since it still has uncut pages. One of my favorite stories about a water nymph who falls in love with a mortal and is gifted with a soul. It’s rather an epic fairy tale which someone aptly described as fairy tale noir. A lovely book with a well rounded and sympathetic heroine. Mischievous and somewhat unseelie water sprite steal a few scenes. There is a later version with Arthur Rackham illustrations. I’ve scanned a few of these less well known interpretations. The detail on the Frontispiece (pictured above) depicts the water sprites who mock Undine for falling in love with a human.

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I first ran into this weird little doll about four years ago, close to when we moved here from Boston. He lived in a glass case in one of the local antique markets. I’m not really a doll person per se. I don’t collect them and I didn’t often play with them when I was little. I was always more interested in books, then and now. I have a few of Kerry Kate’s lovely odd hand painted dolls, who now keep company with the formerly lonely vintage Palestinian rag doll. I think I had a Blythe doll once upon a time but I wasn’t attached enough to her to swear that she existed.

For some reason I became obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with the above pictured odd little antique bisque doll from (I think) the late 1800s. He has no eyes, no hair, messed up ghoulish little teeth, and wears a threadbare roughed up outfit comprised of a jacket that is clearly too small and big pants – voluminous felted wool pants – with Dutch wooden shoes instead of feet. I would go and stare at that doll every time we went to the antique markets hunting for books and talk myself out of buying him. He was expensive for an unfinished bisque doll and I’m not a collector of things. I don’t collect objects other than books related to my work.

I think I drove C.P. McDill crazy over that doll, fussing about the doll, obsessing about the doll, informing him repeatedly that I wanted the doll. I have no idea why I wanted it and I’m sure he was completely baffled. This went on for a few years. That’s right. Years! When Erzebet came along on one of our trips to the market (when was that?) and was shown the object of my obsession, she said “Hah!” out loud “You just want that doll for the BIG pants!” I just lost it laughing and could not stop. From then on the doll was known as the BIG pants doll. Shortly after her visit, I decided I should stop obsessing and just buy the doll. So off I went to collect my doll.

Of course, he was gone.

Gone!

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