The Sparkler of Albion

8 September 2008

Today was a good day for visiting museums; in the morning, we saw the exhibit on Emperor Hadrian (r. 117 - 138) at the British Museum, and in the evening, we paid a call to Charles Dickens' house at 48 Doughty Street where we were treated to wine and a dramatic reading from some of Dickens' greatest novels. But more on our time at the Dickens Museum later. Everything must be discussed in its due order: let me begin with how my day began and our visit to the British Museum.

I rose around eighty-thirty in the morning, showered, and for the fourth or fifth consecutive day, I skipped breakfast. Once everything was in place, a troop of us that included Liza Williams, Zack, Ben, Rob, Sara Verhalen, Annie, Dwight, and me marched down Gower Street until we reached Bedford Square, turning on to Great Russell Street and into the spacious courtyard of the British Museum. We assembled there, chatting casually about the previous day's performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor or the night we spent at the clubs while we waited for everybody else to arrive. When everyone in the group was present and accounted for in addition to Professor Qualls (who's here to prepare for next year when he'll assume responsibility for the Norwich Humanities program), we entered the building. The generous people at British Museum gave us coffee and tea, which was a wonderful way to begin the day.

We were then ushered into an auditorium where Thorsten Opper, the museum's curator of Greek and Roman sculpture, delivered a forty-five minute presentation on the structure and content of the Hadrian exhibit, highlighting significant objects such as a massive sculpted head of the emperor which was recently unearthed in a distant corner of Turkey. He matched my mental image of a museum curator--bespectacled, with receding brown hair, short, round, and inconspicuous like an ottoman in some old woman's sitting room. He paused frequently to reach for his glass of water or to reiterate some point he had previously mentioned, partially because I think he wanted to be certain that (a) we had heard it and (b) we understood it. As a result, his presentation, while informative, went a little too long, and I must confess that it somewhat reduced my sense of wonder when my opportunity to see the exhibit actually presented itself. (It didn't help that the room was very warm, and most conspicuously unprepared for a sunny day in my field gray turtleneck and hooded sweatshirt, I was sweating like a man before the Spanish Inquisition).

Once the presentation was over, we received our tickets and entered the exhibit, which was still pretty impressive. The contents of the collection were quite diverse, including Roman denarii bearing the visage of Hadrian or his wife Sabina, bronze and marble statues, wooden tablets, half-decayed scraps of papyrus, and photographs of the Pantheon and other structures constructed during Hadrian's lifetime. Together they painted a vivid portrait of the man himself and the empire he governed for twenty-one years; it was surprising to think, first, that no-one had before attempted such a exhibit and, second, that because of the extreme age and fragility of many of the artifacts, such an exhibit would probably not occur again in my lifetime. Oh, to think that anything, whether it's as small as supply order from Simon bar Kochba to Jewish rebels in Judaea or as large as a bronze statue of Hadrian, has persisted to the present! And that we should know anything of our past at all as much as we have lost! As a historian, I count them among life's everyday mercies.

Things inside the exhibit were certainly crowded, and I have to admit that it caused me to move through a little faster than I wanted. The curator had said that in order to do the exhibit justice, one needed about one hour and fifteen minutes; it ended up taking me about an hour, so perhaps my loss was not too grievous. Of course, I realise that whether the British Museum possesses any of these items in its collection will be a source of trouble to some within the group, but we'll have to wait and see. I'm content for the moment to go about my days like a leaf on a whirlwind--admittedly a sentimental, excessively Romantic image which has been bouncing around my skull for the past few days now.

Anyway, after we were finished with the exhibit, I returned to the Arran House where I collected, sorted, and placed my dirty shirts, pants, underwear, and socks into my green rollerboard in preparation for an afternoon foray with Greg to the laundromat. I was sick to the point of dying of throwing on clothes for the second, third, or even the forth time without washing them every morning, so I didn't care that I would have to walk three or four blocks to reach the laundromat, or part with a few pounds more than if I waited to do my laundry at the Hotel. I simply wanted to put on a clean polo shirt, its fibers still warm from the dryer. And two hours later, around four-thirty, I got my wish when I folded my last pair of clean underwear and placed it lovingly in my suitcase. It cost me only eight pounds for two loads, one of coloureds and one of whites, in the washer and a combined load in the dryer, which isn't bad at all.

We were supposed to meet at Charles Dickens' house at 48 Doughty Street at six o' clock, so I didn't have time to grab dinner after I arrived back at the Arran House. It was pretty much a case of "get back, check e-mail, change shirt, and then leave." The walk was an easy one; we retraced our steps down Gower Street, turning first on to Montague Place and then across Russell Square to Guilford Street, which we followed till the quaint Georgian apartments of Doughty Street appeared to our right. If I had to estimate how long of a walk it was, I would say it was around fifteen to twenty minutes. We waited outside until everyone in the group had arrived and then we proceeded inside, where we poked around the four or five rooms they had prepared for visitors. The house had not been restored to its exact appearance when Dickens had lived there during the 1840s. There were pieces of furnitures that had belonged to Dickens when he had lived somewhere else or that were typical of the period. There were mementos of Dickens and his family everywhere. The basement library was covered on every wall with bookcases, which contained nearly every edition of works by or about Charles Dickens. It was awesome--I know I have abused that word of late, but I don't know what else to say. It was simply awesome.

The museum provided us with several bottles of red and white wine--an act of generosity that was heartily received by many of the people in the program. It was pleasant to be able to sit in the garden, enjoy a good glass of Bordeaux (or in my case, two glasses), and relax. There was lively conversation, and some of us joined in a game called "Look Up, Look Down," which was Meghan Blickman's idea, I believe. Around eight-thirty, we retreated into the house, into the basement library of all places, where we watched an actor whose name I have sadly forgotten performed a one-man show called "The Sparkler of Albion," which was based on Dickens' dramatic readings of his works. Nameless though he remains, the man filling the role of Charles Dickens was very good, but I daresay that he could have been the worst of players, I still could have wrung some enjoyment out of the performance. He read extensively from Dickens' great novels--The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Dombey and Son (1846-1848), David Copperfield (1849-1850), Little Dorrit (1855-1857), Oliver Twist (1837-1839), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859)--and as the performer read, I began to relive the many, many hours of my childhood and adolescence that I had spent in the company of Dickens' novels. It was great to be able to pinpoint which novel he was quoting, even without the benefit of an introduction. During the intermission, I was absolutely giddy, so much so that I probably said some things that might not have been altogether appropriate. Don't worry, though--Shannyn and Tristan were there to keep my tongue from running away with the rest of me.

The performance ended a little before ten o' clock with a powerful interpretation of the deaths of Nancy and Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist. I then joined Ben, Rob, Greg, and Dwight--or the "Goodge Street Gang," as we jokingly refer to ourselves--for a late-night run to KFC. Never has fried chicken tasted so good. It was then home to the Arran House where I learned from Shannyn that she got her ticket for the evensong service that St. Giles Cripplegate will be conducting to honor the 400th birthday of John Milton. Let's say that she is still very, very excited. I then checked e-mail, changed into my pajamas, popped a NyQuil capsule, and went to sleep. A good day, all and all. A good day.