A Room with a View - E. M. Forster [101]
2 (p. 19) “If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that you can neglect the good person. Miss Honeychurch will be perfectly safe”: Mrs. Grundy is an imaginary watchdog of conventional opinion. In Thomas Morton’s play Speed the Plough (1798), Dame Ash-field continually invokes the name of her neighbor, Mrs. Grundy, as an unseen but feared arbiter of respectability: “What would Mrs. Grundy say?” is her anxious refrain.
3 (p. 20) San Miniato—beautiful as well as interesting; the crucifix that kissed a murderer—Miss Honeychurch would remember the story: Baedeker tells the story to which Miss Lavish alludes: Above the altar in the church of San Miniato “is the small crucifix which is said to have nodded approvingly to San Giovanni Gualberto when he forgave the murderer of his brother” (Italy: Handbook for Travellers, p. 522; see “For Further Reading”). The guidebook explains that in showing mercy to his brother’s assassin, this son of a powerful eleventh-century Florentine family chose peace over a blood feud.
4 (p. 20) “My father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so dreadful about Ireland”: William Gladstone (1809-1898) served four terms as prime minister of Britain and was known for his policies of social reform. His persistent support of Irish nationalism, however, alienated many of his supporters in the Liberal Party (of whom Lucy’s father was apparently one).
5 (p. 23) There was no one even to tell her which . . . was the one that was really beautiful, the one that had been most praised by Mr. Ruskin: John Ruskin (1819-1900), essayist and art critic, was the author of Modern Painters, a five-volume series completed in 1860 that played a major role in shaping the aesthetic sensibilities of Victorian England, particularly of its rising professional class. His Stones of Venice (1851-1853) celebrated the Italian city’s Gothic architecture, influencing the Gothic revival in Victorian architecture. Baedeker quotes liberally from Ruskin’s writings on Italy, including his essay “Mornings in Florence” (1875), in which, to answer Lucy’s question, Ruskin identifies the sepulchral slab of Galileo Galilei (an ancestor of the astronomer) in Santa Croce as “one of the most beautiful pieces of fourteenth century sculpture in this world.”
6 (p. 30) “I don’t believe in this world sorrow.... Make him realize that by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes—a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes”: An article in the Sunday Magazine (London) in 1896 took “The World-Sorrow” as its subject, suggesting that the idea (and the phrase) was gaining currency as the new century dawned. Mr. Emerson’s “everlasting Why” evokes two chapter titles in Sartor Resartus, Thomas Carlyle’s treatise on revolution, human will, and belief: “The Everlasting No” and “The Everlasting Yea.” Carlyle’s book bears a connection to a more famous Emerson as well: Soon after its serialization in Frasier’s Magazine in 1833 and 1834, it was championed in the United States by Ralph Waldo Emerson and proved influential, along with other works by Carlyle, in shaping the American Transcendental movement.
7 (p. 49) she had been in the Piazza since eight o‘clock collecting material.... The two men had quarreled over a five-franc note: As Baedeker notes, the French monetary system was widely used in Italy, with a franc equivalent to the Italian lira. At the time, 5 francs were equal to 4 shillings, or 1 dollar (about 12 dollars in today’s currency).
8 (p. 51) that intimate knowledge, or rather perception, of Florence which is denied to all who carry in their pockets the coupons of Cook: Thomas Cook (1808-1892), a pioneer of modern tourism who developed and led group excursions within England and abroad, instituted a coupon system for the convenience of travelers. Cook negotiated fair prices with preferred hotels, whose proprietors would then accept his coupons in lieu of cash as payment for meals and accommodations.