William Henry Schofield English Literature: From the Norman Conquest to Chaucer (1906)

Lowry refers to a "comic song", which is mentioned in the William Henry Schofield's book, in a letter to Carol Brown dated April/May 1926 as he describes to her his love saying that the song; "....expresses exactly my state of mind. I can't believe that anybody loved like me. 'For her love I cark and droop' Another comic song. (Collected Letters Vol 1 Pg. 18)

The quote's context is detailed below:

"Refrains from, folk -songs seem to have been adopted by trained writers to accompany their art-lyrics, which were probably composed with popular airs in mind To a charming poem of  the troubadour style, for example, is attached the following refrain :

Blow, northern wind, 
Send thou me my sweeting, 
Blow, northern wind, blow, blow, blow 


The author of this poem offers a very graceful, somewhat allegorical, description of his lady. He appeals to Love for counsel in trouble; and is advised to plead with his sweetheart and implore her to relieve his pain. Thus he concludes :

For her love I cark and care, 
For her love I droop and dare (decline). 
For her love my bliss is bare, 
And all I wax wan. 

For her love in sleep I slake, 
For her love all night I wake, 
For her love mourning I make, 
More than any man."

Schofield's book is most likely Lowry's source for the song though there was an earliersources e.g. New Monthly Magazine, Volume 11 edited by Thomas Campbell, Samuel Carter Hall, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, Thomas Hood, Theodore Edward Hook, William Harrison Ainsworth (1819) Pg. 338 and Thomas Campbell Essay on English Poetry (1819) as well as various other 19th Century texts. It is possible that Schofield's book was a text book at The Leys School.

Gerald de Nerval Aurélia

Lithograph by Pearl Binder for Aurélia  1932

Gerard de Nerval's Aurélia is a fantasy-ridden interior autobiography— "Our dreams are a second life," he wrote — which influenced the Surrealists. Lowry makes no direct reference to Richard Aldington's 1932 translation of Gerald de Nerval's Aurélia. However, Lowry uses a line in his novel Ultramarine taken from Aldington's introduction to the translation. Compare:

"When I was fourteen I was under the delusion for a year I was Thomas Chatterton.....mad? No ...not even that. But a kind of semi-madman, pernicious and irritating and apathetic in the extreme, for whom in madness, as in death to the impotent, exists the only dignified escape." (Ultramarine Pg. 95).

"Literature, especially of the Romantic and Pre-Romantic period contains numerous semi-madmen who, upon the whole, are rather pernicious and irritating." (Introduction to Aurelia Pg. xvii)

Lowry's work contains other references to Aldington's work whom he may have known through Conrad Aiken. If they didn't actually meet then Lowry appears to have been familiar with Aldington's work.

Nerval's Aurélia may have appealed to Lowry for several reasons. The fantasy-ridden interior autobiography Aurelia can be compared to parts of Ultramarine especially in the more dream like sequences. Lowry was also drawn to references to suicide following Paul Fitte's suicide - Nerval hung himself. Nerval travelled to the Far East documenting it in his work Voyage to the Orient -  published during 1851, resulting from his voyage of 1842 to Cairo and Beirut. In addition to a travel account it retells Oriental tales, like Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, in terms of the artist and the act of creation. Lowry's construction of Ultramarine is in part a complex montage of a voyage to the East, in which the artist plays with forms to create a novel, using a variety of techniques including allusion and plagarism. Nerval added a series of appendices to Voyage to the Orient, the majority of the material taken directly from Lane's Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians - a technique not unlike Lowry's later use of travel brochures in La Mordida. Lowry also appears to have been drawn to writers who are accused of plagarism or manipulate other's work such as Herman Melville, Thomas Chatterton etc. The linking of Nerval and Chatterton may also have to do with both committing suicide and also the possibility that venereal disease may have been the reason for both writer's "madness" which was a fear for Lowry reflected in Dana's fears in Ultramarine.

Lowry's nickname was 'Lobs' and he may have known about the story of the lobster and Nerval. Nerval is quoted as having said "Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog? ...or a cat, or a gazelle, or a lion, or any other animal that one chooses to take for a walk? I have a liking for lobsters. They are peaceful, serious creatures. They know the secrets of the sea, they don't bark, and they don't gnaw upon one's monadic privacy like dogs do. And Goethe had an aversion to dogs, and he wasn't mad." (Gautier, Théophile. Portraits et Souvenirs Littéraires (Paris: Charpentier, 1875), Richard Holmes trans.).

Nerval's suicide by Gustave Doré.

In the same paragraph from which Lowry took the words "a kind of semi-madman, pernicious and irritating";  he could have easily have seen the rest of  the paragraph pertaining to the kind of creation he may have wanted to aspire to and which he later achieved in Under The Volcano:

Nerval was a real madman, and so far as I know he is one madman who has recovered and attempted to give some account of his sensations and experience while lost in the dreadful gulf of insanity. I confess I cannot read Aurélia without a shudder. Its incoherences, its repetitions, its formlessness, its deformation of reality, its wanderings among old memories, its pitiful attempts at sincerity and still more pitiful attempt at concealment or justification, produce a more genuine feeling of horror than the most horrific tale of Poe. (Introduction to Aurélia Pg. xvii)

James Johnston Abraham The Surgeon's Log

Lowry refers to James Johnston Abraham's The Surgeon's Log in his short story 'Enter One In Sumptuous Armour'; "Closing the dictionary I jammed it back next to The Surgeon's Log."

We must assume because of Lowry's mention of The Surgeon's Log that he had read the book. The Surgeon's Log was published in 1911 and ran to 31 editions with photographs.

Ship's surgeon and his first book

For an impecunious young man this was bad news as he could not afford to take the time off. He had agreed, after graduation, that he would not be a financial burden on his father who could well have afforded to help him out. Indeed, he had offered to buy him a practice had he not pursued the surgical route. The pathologist roommate came up with the idea of a sea voyage and he enlisted for a six month spell as a ship's surgeon on a 10,000 ton cargo ship which carried no passengers, sailing from Birkenhead. 

He had such a splendid time that he became somewhat of a bore about it upon his return and his pathologist friend persuaded him to write a book about his experiences. He did, and hawked it around nine publishers; they all turned it down. One day, when having afternoon tea in the Staff Room of St Peter's Hospital, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, he looked out of the window. Across the road he saw the offices of Chapman & Hall, Dickens' publishers. He sent them the manuscript and the Managing Director, Arthur Waugh (Evelyn's father) accepted it. He had originally called it The Voyage of the Clytemestra, the name of his ship, but Waugh changed the title to The Surgeon's Log' and it became a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and was still selling steadily in the late 1950s, particularly in its Penguin form. It is a beautifully written descriptive travelogue, not dissimilar in style to that of Eric Newby.

It must have been a wonderful and restful experience which was what he needed. With only the crew to look after he had little medical work to do and was able to relax on deck in the tropics and go ashore in the ports. They sailed non-stop to Port Said, traversed the Suez Canal and then crossed the Indian Ocean to Penang. They sailed down the Malacca Strait to Singapore. From Singapore they sailed to Japan and visited Nagasaki, Moji and then by the Inland Sea to Kobe and on to Yokohama (and Tokyo). From there they sailed to the Dutch East Indies and thence home via Marseilles. J S Bingham A publisher, a bobbin-boy and the Society Presidential address to the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases, 28 April, 1995 at The Royal College of Physicians of London: Genitourin Med 1995;71:314-322

The appeal of such a book to the young Lowry is not surprising given that his work is littered with references to readings of books about ships and sea voyages. The apparent 'splendid time' had by Abraham may have convinced a young Lowry that he could replicate the experience and write up his own 'log'.

Lowry's 1927 voyage to the Far East followed a very similar route to one made by Abraham. Both Lowry and Abraham sailed on Blue Funnel ships and both disguised the name of the real ship they sailed on. They both had similar mixed attitudes to race and gender apparent in both the Surgeon's Log and Ultramarine which could be argued reflect white/European attitudes of the period though both temper their racism with sympathetic views to peoples they come across.

Abraham informs  the reader that he carefully logged conversations and details for later use which may have tied into ideas Lowry was having in the mid-1920s about being a writer. One major difference is that Abraham's book is an out and out travelogue whereas Lowry's Ultramarine is a far more complex text though Lowry was accused by early reviewers of the novel of adding 'local colour' to the novel.

Lowry's eventual log details a socially different class experience to the one detailed by Abraham who concentrated on the officers as opposed to Lowry's attempts to empathasise with the crew. Though Abraham does explore details of the Chinese crew's experience and life aboard the ship.

One possible major influence of The Surgeon's Log is providing Lowry with the title of his novel Ultramarine as Abraham describes the sea as ultramarine; "gazing dreamily out over a sea of ultramarine." (Pg. 189) and the sky as ultramarine; "smiling under a sky of purest ultramarine shading gradually to a pearly-grey as it touched the horizon." (Pg. 227).

The only similarity in 'plot' between the two books is comparison can be made between Horner's desire to rescue the Japanese woman Ponta from the 'tea-shop' in Kobe and Dana's fantasy of rescuing Olga from the brothel in Tsjang Tsjang (Dairen). There is also the possibility that the references to Moji in Ultramarine stem from Lowry's recollection from The Surgeon's Log, which features a visit to the port where his ship takes on coal (Pgs. 122-144).

James Abraham was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, and was educated there and at Trinity College Dublin where he studied medicine. He practised in County Clare and was appointed Resident Medical Officer to London Dock Hospital and Rescue Home in 1908. In 1914 he travelled to Serbia, where he administered to the Serbian army and played a major part in bolstering morale. He coped with inadequate supplies, outbreaks of typhoid, scarlet fever, recurrent fever, smallpox and a typhus epidemic. He was the first doctor on location to diagnose typhus, and he and the Serbian Army Medical Corps managed to contain it. He was then called to the Middle East and latterly became a Harley Street specialist. He was created a Knight of St John Consulting Surgeon at the Princess Beatrice Hospital in London. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, President of the Irish Medical Graduates' Association and in 1949 won the Arnott Medal. He was author of The Night Nurse (1913); Surgeon's Journal, Balkan Log and The Surgeon's Log, which ran to thirty-one editions. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate in 1946. The Dictionary of Ulster Biography 


Read a detailed obituary in Royal College of Surgeons of England Annals

James Wood New World Vistas

SELF-PORTRAIT, CIRCA 1918 

James Wood 1889-1975 - Painter, draughtsman, writer and aesthete, born in Southport, Lancashire. From 1908-11 he read history at Cambridge University, then in Paris, after studying etching, pursued painting with Percyval Tudor-Hart before going to Munich. During World War I he was in the army and Royal Flying Corps, later working on battleship camouflage. 

Among Wood's writings after World War I were The Foundations of Aesthetics, written with C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. He also wrote on colour harmony, a favourite topic, and in 1926 published New World Vistas, an autobiographical work. 

From the 1930s Wood became increasingly fascinated by Persian Art; he learn Persian and subsequently became art adviser to the Persian government. His own paintings were influenced by Kandinsky, and he showed at Leicester and Zwemmer Galleries in solo exhibitions. 

After 1955 he rarely exhibited, but painted several portraits of Cambridge Academics. Wood lived in a remote cottage above Llantony, Monmouthshire, from which he continued to monitor artistic development and where he worked until his death. In 1980 Blond Fine Art held a show of his output. Wood was married to a painter, Elisabeth Robertson, who had previously been the wife of the artist and writer Humphrey Slater. British Abstract Art

Lowry makes no direct reference to James Wood's New World Vistas 1926 but he does use lines from the book in the short story 'Goya The Obscure'. Lowry also utilises the overall atmosphere of Wood's work for the Liverpool scenes in 'Goya The Obscure' as both works include a walk around the Pier Head, Liver Buildings and docks. Compare:

"the wind rushed round him with a cold monstrous final insistency." ('Goya The Obscure' Pg. 277)

"the wind rushed round me with a cold monstrous final insistency." (New World Vistas Pg. 70);

"Tram- lines ran in front of the offices; further away secret tunnels bored through the gloomy buildings and the Overhead Railway and a number of sloping bridges leading to the landing stage spread round in bleak and bare confusion." ('Goya The Obscure' Pg. 277).

"Tram lines ran in front of the offices, dark tunnels branched away between side buildings, the overhead railway and a number of sloping bridges leading to the landing stages spread round in bleak and bare confusion." (New World Vistas Pg. 70).

"Yet the howling wind had blown everything clean as a whistle and the sky was a ferocious blue" (Pg. 277).

"A howling wind had blown the air as clean as a whistle for miles and miles" (New World Vistas Pg. 67).

"Tram bells clanged" ('Goya The Obscure' Pg. 277).

"The tram bells clanged but no one heeded..." (New World Vistas Pg. 69).

"Mothers with warm-smelling furs.." ('Goya The Obscure' Pg. 277).

"..graceful girls smelling of fur.." (New World Vistas Pg. 67).

"But the wind had enveloped and overarched all these masses of iron and concrete......('Goya The Obscure' Pg. 277).

"The wind alone seemed to surround and over-arch this mass of concrete and iron...." (New World Vistas Pg. 70).

"Brutal buildings strode into the air above Joe Passilique.." ('Goya The Obscure' Pg. 277).

The twin towers capped with dull green lead and the peculiar figures of the Liver bird abutted on the blue sky with an unpleasant brutality."  (New World Vistas Pg. 70).

"A drove of black cattle clattered past, herded by a hooligan with a twisted stick." ('Goya The Obscure' Pg. 278).

"..a herd of black cattle..pursued by a tramp in a ragged blue suit....waving a stick as he rushed after them with the gaunt determination of a maniac.." (New World Vistas Pg. 71).

Lowry utilised the same lines in Chapter 2 of Ultramarine (Pg.s.69-70).

Ecclesian Trees

Lowry refers to "Ecclesian trees" in a letter dated 2/5/1926 to Carol Brown; " When I think of you I think always of those moors, a smell of bracken, heather and gorse, and the Ecclesian trees over which it seems one may dive into the Dee." (Collected Letters Vol 1 Pg. 26). Lowry is most likely alluding to the almond trees in Ecclesiastes; "Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Ecclesiastes 12:5 King James Bible (Cambridge Edition).

Lowry's allusion is probably to hawthorn trees which were the most common species used for hedging during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries after the parliamentary enclosures in England. Hawthorn has more connections with ancient beliefs and traditions than almost any other tree. It was a powerful supernatural force for good or for evil. The appearance of the May blossom was the herald of the end of winter and the beginning of summer. Often, the May Queen was crowned with May blossom but at the same time it was considered unlucky to bring May flowers into a house.