Saturday, 7 January 2023
Like the perfume of a mummy
Royal residences have attached to them a peculiar kind of melancholy, due, no doubt, to their dimensions being much too large for the limited number of guests entertained within them, to the silence which one feels astonished to find in them after so many flourishes of trumpets, to the immobility of their luxurious furniture, which attests by the aspect of age and decay it gradually assumes the transitory character of dynasties, the eternal wretchedness of all things; and this exhalation of the centuries, enervating and funereal, like the perfume of a mummy, makes itself felt even in untutored brains.
Gustave Flaubert - Sentimental Education (1869)
Not only royal residences, but many of the National Trust’s stately homes too. They have that peculiar kind of melancholy which seems determined to tell us that gilded excess cannot endure for long.
It can be hard work wandering round a stately home, trying to bring history to the foreground while battling against an enervating and funereal ambience. The impression isn’t something the National Trust manages to dispel with much success.
Its determination to be politically correct merely makes the situation worse, as the National Trust itself gradually assumes the transitory character of dynasties.
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4 comments:
The writer Adam Nicolson wrote a book about the Sissinghurst estate and how it is managed by the National Trust. He describes how every year at the end of the season, a conservationist takes apart the study of Vita Sackville-West (Nicholson's grandmother) and packs away all the displayed ephemera on her desk - yellowing letters, photographs, pens, blotter, notebooks, dried flowers, etc. - and stores it safely until it gets set out the next spring in exactly the same order. I guess this is important at some level, but it must be uniquely dispiriting work.
"old families last not but three oaks."
Sir Thomas Browne.
Having visited many National Trust and other properties, the one thing that strikes me about most of them is how tatty and worn out the furnishings are. I know you can't replace Sheraton or Chippendale but the soft furnishings could be renewed or repaired.
Sam - I've sometimes wondered about similar displays where everything is preserved as it was, because inevitably it isn't as it was. There is definitely something morbid about the preserved working environment of someone long gone. As you say, clearing the study of Vita Sackville-West then putting it all back again must be uniquely dispiriting work.
dearieme - 'three generations' is one observation which springs to mind. I think it was made by someone who had studied the longevity of aristocrat families.
John - they seem to do some repairs, but stop short of making them look new.
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