Bookish Goudge
Book-Lovers' Quotes from 'A City of Bells'
“When people… begin to read they go on.
They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must.
Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greedy for life, you know…”
🍂 Elizabeth Goudge, A City of Bells
Goudge’s love of books
Through her novels and children’s books, Goudge readily shared her love for books of all sorts. Fairytales, poetry, plays and prose. She quoted from a long list of authors, but Shakespeare was a particular favorite ever since her father Henry took her to see a play when she came home from school one for the holidays. Goudge also mentions Jane Austen very frequently, especially in her modern novels.
Now that we have taken a look at the setting of Torminster in Wells, UK, it is easy to imagine why she found books so magical. At the center of Cathedral life were many schools of learning, and her father became the Principal over all. (Hence why they lived in the Principal’s House, aka “The Rib.”) So it is not surprising that here in A City of Bells we get a treasure load of bookish quotes and wisdom about the authors, sellers and readers of the great classics in Jocelyn’s shop.
This post is for all of the book lovers! Shop Around the Corner, Wells’ Chained library, Henry Goudge’s bookcase, and Grandfather's bookish wisdom today for Goudge Readalong…
Wells’ Chained Library from the 15th Century
Above is the Chained Library found in Wells Cathedral:
A chained library is a library where the books are attached to their bookcase by a chain, which is sufficiently long enough to allow the books to be taken from their shelves and read, but not removed from the library itself. The practice was usual for reference libraries (that is, the vast majority of libraries) from the Middle Ages to around the 18th century. This would prevent theft of the library's materials. Since the chaining process was also expensive, it was not used on all books, only the more valuable books such as reference works or large books in a collection were chained. Librarians in the Middle Ages often invoked curses as well to keep books from being stolen. Once such curse written into the books was,
“Steal not this book my honest friend
For fear the gallows should be your end,
And when you die the Lord will say
And where's the book you stole away?”1
“ ‘[The profession of a bookseller] is the most friendly vocation in the world,’ Grandfather announced.
‘Why?’ asked Jocelyn…
'A bookseller,’ said Grandfather, ‘is the link between mind and mind, the feeder of the hungry, very often the binder up of wounds. There he sits, your bookseller, surrounded by a thousand minds all done up neatly in cardboard cases; beautiful minds, courageous minds, strong minds, wise minds, all sorts and conditions. And there come into him other minds, hungry for beauty, for knowledge, for truth, for love, and to the best of his ability he satisfies them all… Yes… It's a great vocation.'
‘Greater than a writer's?’ asked Felicity….
‘Immeasurably,’ said Grandfather. 'A writer has to spin his work out of himself and the effect upon the character is often disastrous. It inflates the ego. Now your bookseller sinks his own ego in the thousand different egos that he introduces one to the other…
“Moreover his life is one of wide horizons. He deals in the stuff of eternity and there's no death in a bookseller's shop. Plato and Jane Austen and Keats sit side by side behind his back, Shakespeare is on his right hand and Shelley on his left… Yes. Writers, from what I've seen of them, are a very queer lot, but booksellers are the salt of the earth.'
🍂 Elizabeth Goudge, A City of Bells
Henry Goudge’s bookcase
There is an interesting description that Goudge gave to her father’s bookcase in their home at The Principal’s House:
“One room which was all but out-of-bounds for Elizabeth was Father's special domain, his study - understandably, as much of his work as clergyman, tutor, and author of around thirty published works, would have been carried out at home. He must have spent a good deal of his time closeted there, and greatly valued its privacy, which was largely created by a custom-made double bookcase.
‘It was about six feet long and five feet high, was lined with bookshelves on each side and placed at right angles to the door. My father had his chair and writing table upon the other side of it and with books at his back and books to right and left sat in a protected nook, unseen by anyone entering the room.’
This excellent piece of furniture, she said, was created by "the artist-craftsman of a cabinet-maker who made much of my parents' furniture" and it "accompanied him from study to study wherever he lived."2
“ 'It can't last,’ said Jocelyn to Grandfather. ‘I'm a new turn, like a performing bear.'
'I think it will last,’ said Grandfather. ‘In my experience when people once begin to read they go on. They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must. Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greedy for life, you know, and our short span of existence can't give us all that we hunger for, the time is too short and our capacity not large enough. But in books we experience all life vicariously.’
But Jocelyn became gradually a good deal more to Torminster than just its bookseller, he became its interpreter. He had the gift, born of sympathy and personal humility, of banishing restraint by giving people a good conceit of themselves, and so it happened that people like Mr Bell the draper and his son Bert summoned courage to drop in in the evenings when the shops were shut and talk books with Jocelyn.”
🍂 Elizabeth Goudge, A City of Bells
Shop Around the Corner
Did the scene with the opening of Jocelyn’s shop in chapter six remind anyone else of the perfect movie bookstore, Shop Around the Corner? Read on…
“Jocelyn went out into the Market Place to take down his shutters. This daily opening of the shop was a continual delight to him. As he came out into the sunlight, where the pigeons were whirling softly through the golden air and the sleepy cats were stretching themselves in the sun, he glanced round him to see who else had come out to take their shutters down . . . Yes, they were all there ...The landlord of The Green Dragon, Mr Bell, Mr Jones, Mr Atkins, Mr Loveday, 'Arriet Kate of the sweet-shop and several others. They glanced at each other across the Market Place and nodded and smiled, for this was their hour of fellowship and in the absence of those whom they served they were conscious of each other as a brotherhood of servers, and then, with a creaking and grinding, the shutters came down and the eyes of the shops were open…”
“Nine o'clock rang out from the Cathedral, mellow and lovely, and the work of the day had begun. Jocelyn took a duster from his pocket and began polishing his bow-window from the outside. As he He smoothed its face lovingly, going carefully into all the corners, he remembered how, when he had first seen this window, even though the shop behind had been empty, he had thought of it as being bulged outwards by the wealth behind… Well, the wealth was there now, rows and rows of it, the greatest treasures of mankind.
He went into the shop, accompanied by Mixed Biscuits, and began dusting and rearranging and reading the books, a job that kept him endlessly happy between the visits of customers. His desultory reading during the daytime was giving him a nodding acquaintance with nearly every author in the shop and during the long evenings when the shop was closed he picked out a few of them and let the acquaintance deepen into friendship.”
🍂 Elizabeth Goudge, A City of Bells
Here is a longer tour video of behind-the-scenes views, it’s the history, and peek at the Chained Library! The Secrets Of Wells Cathedral
If you only have a quick minute:
See the chained library at 15:30
If you read The White Witch in October, be sure to see the Siege of Wells at 23:00
Would you enjoy going into Jocelyn’s bookshop?
Are there any other bookish quotes that you love in Goudge’s book?
Love to hear!
Related posts:
Beyond the Snow, Christine Rawlins
This is my first introduction to chained libraries. And *how* have I not read Elizabeth Goudge's A City of Bells? I have to get my hands on a copy of that. Thank you for sharing all of these wonderful quotes!
This is like finding a bright shining jewellery in today's dark world! I adored Elizabeth Goudge as a teenager. I wrote to her to say how much I loved and appreciated her work when I was about 14 and received a beautiful letter and photo back from her when she was living at Rose Cottage. I am 67 now and her books still, even more so now, give me such comfort, and if I am feeling down and at odds with life, delving into one of her books soothes in a way nothing else can. Its like having an old friend who is always there for you. You asked others for favourite quotes from her books. There is one that touched me in particular, which I actually wrote in a book of condolence for the late Diana, Princess of Wales. I cannot remember it exactly now, but it was about understanding. Something along the lines of...lf you understand people, you are of use to them... saying essentially that even though it might not seem that much, to understand a person was to give them the greatest gift you could. Does that chime a chord with anyone? I have a feeling it may be from The Eliots of Dameroshay.