British Library, Day Ten

Just about all of what I read was tract-length today, except for The Priest in Absolution.  If you're a Victorianist, you may have heard of it, but probably haven't seen it (it isn't digitized anywhere)--it's an Anglo-Catholic manual for priests explaining how to handle confessions, penance, and absolution.  It was also the cause of a massive scandal, complete with quotations read aloud in Parliament, because of its handling of sexuality (even though the actual instructions are very clear that the priest is to be super-cautious about this topic and, whenever possible, to keep matters at a high level of abstraction).   I also decided not to read one novella because it was such in such terrifyingly bad condition, thanks to a combination of the paper (late-Victorian acidic paper ahoy) and the binding (what binding?), that I feared destroying it altogether.  (Even without those problems, what I saw indicated that it wasn't doing anything new or interesting in re: anti-Catholic tropes.)

I did get to see a tract condemning religious fiction.  There's a longer American critique which covers basically the same territory--it breaks down the distinction between truth and lies, it misrepresents theology, it goes against Biblical precepts, it makes children unable to read nonfiction, and so on.  

• [Cecilia Mary Caddell], Little Snowdrop, the Unbaptised One; or, the Story of the Three Baptisms (Burns and Lambert, n.d.).  Catholic novel for children.  "Little Snowdrop" is the nickname for Angelina (arrrrrgh), the daughter of an unnamed woman washed up on shore in Paraguay after a shipwreck.  She is rescued by an unnamed Indian who, imprisoned by the Spanish many years previously, had been positively impressed by a Catholic priest.   Although unbaptized himself, the Indian raises the adorable little Angelina on stories of Christ with some uncomfortable racial overtones.  Eventually, Angelina stumbles on a church at a nearby mission, and much Catholic theology follows; the priest turns out to be the same one as the one who proselytized the Indian in prison (of course...), and baptizes the old man before he dies. There's a particularly discomfiting moment when Angelina prevents an Indian woman who loathes the Catholics from coming near her dying child, who is about to be baptized.   Angelina, who yearns for baptism, finally gets her wish when she saves the priest from being run down by a bull (as one does), dying of the wounds after being baptized and taking Communion.  BODY COUNT: Four.
• Elie Berthet, The Vessels of the Sanctuary: A Tale of Normandy (Burns and Lambert, n.d.).  Another Catholic tale, set in Normandy in 1802.  Farmer Fleuriot, a former sacristan, has been taking care of his orphaned nieces and nephews.  Surely that's good? Well, no it's not, because--once the priest returns from exile--it becomes clear that he's supporting them on the money he made by selling off the monstrance, candles &c. from the destroyed church.  The priest, understandably ticked, nevertheless manages to buy a new set of vessels using the last remnants of his inheritance, and at the end everyone is forgiven.  There's even a symbolic marriage between the warring families of Fleuriot and the revolutionary Denis.  Interesting because of the "rebuilt church" trope, which is common in English Catholic novels (but no doubt also makes sense in the post-Revolutionary French context).  BODY COUNT: Zero.
• Fr. Lawrence McCarthy, trans., Brother and Sister, or the Lessons of Adversity; A Catholic Tale
   (Ornamental Job Press, 1890).  A Catholic novel translated from an unidentified Italian original.  A French count has understandable difficulties during the Revolutionary era, compounded by his son Augustus, who is proud (sin!) and inadvertently betrays him.  However, daughter Alina manages to develop Augustus' spiritual capacities.  Their various adventures (in which, among other things, Augustus atones for his sin by busting dad out of prison) force Augustus to relinquish his snootiness and become a good capitalist instead of a good aristocrat, while Alina becomes a teacher.  At the end, though, everyone is reunited, they get their chateau back, and Augustus, now restored to his patrimony, marries a merchant's daughter--modernity, in other words, harmoniously uniting itself to antiquity.  BODY COUNT: Two (offstage).
• Louisa Emily Dobree, Per Parcel Post (Catholic Truth Society, 1892).  A young Catholic girl, hoping to go to Switzerland, instead winds up with her disliked cousin, Miss O'Meara.  The experience, however, teaches her the importance of submitting to God's will; it also leads to romance and, more interestingly, a new career as a Catholic children's novelist (there are some comments about how to write a good religious novel).  Readers will probably be saddened by the death of a cute little dog named Fenian.  BODY COUNT: Two (including the dog).