5. Gallery for "Herself" (Braddon, 1894)

"You. You have been telling me so for the last half-hour. It is because of the ghost you don't want me to go to the Orange Grove. You might just as well be candid and tell me the whole story. I am not afraid of ghosts. In fact, I rather like the idea of having a ghost on my property. Wouldn't you, Helen, if you had property?" (Braddon, 3).

Braddon, Elizabeth. “The Christmas Number.” Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, page 3, 17 Nov. 1894. 

“She kissed the white house in the photograph. She gloated over the wildness of the landscape, in which the villa stood out, solitary, majestic. Palms, olives, cypress—a deep gorge cutting through the heart of the picture—mountains romantically remote—one white crest in the farthest distance—a foreground of tumbled crags and threads of running water” (Braddon, 3).

Herman van Swanevelt, and Dutch. View of an Italian Villa. etching, c. 1600 - 1655. The National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.); Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, JSTOR,…

"That was very sad; but surely you would not blame a lovely villa in Italy," smiling down at a photograph in her lap, the picture of the typical southern villa, French windows, verandah, balconies, tower, terraces, garden, and fountain" (Braddon, 3)."

Challe. Italian Villa. chalk on gray paper. Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.14543624. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024. 

“I was Lota's dearest friend, and she was mine. I had never seen anyone quite so pretty, or quite so fascinating then: I have never seen anyone as pretty or as fascinating since. She was no Helen, no Cleopatra, no superbly modelled specimen of typical loveliness. She was only herself. Like no one else, and to my mind better than everybody else—a delicately wrought ethereal creature, all spirit and fire and impulse and affection, flinging herself with ardour into every pursuit, living intensely in the present, curiously reckless of the future, curiously forgetful of the past” (Braddon, 4).…

“She looked round her, with furtive, wandering glances, at the heavy old bookshelves, the black and white cabinets, the dismal old Italian tapestry, and at a Venetian glass which occupied a narrow recess at the end of the inner room, a glass that reached from floor to ceiling, and in a florid carved frame, from which the gilding had mostly worn away” (Braddon, 6).

Braddon, Elizabeth. “The Christmas Number.” Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, page 6, 17 Nov. 1894. 

"I pressed the question so far as to ask him about the rooms at the back of the house, the old monkish rooms which had served as an infirmary in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. "Surely those rooms must be cold and damp?" (Braddon, 6).

Tinodela. “File:Vitrail Bénédictine.Jpg.” Wikimedia Commons , Feb. 2009, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benedictine2.JPG.

"Her glance lingered on this Venetian glass, which to my uneducated eye looked the oldest piece of furniture in the room. The surface was so clouded and tarnished that although Lota and I were standing opposite it at a little distance, I could see no reflection of ourselves or of the room” (Braddon, 6).

Beals, Jessie Tarbox (New York, N.Y.). Unidentified Woman Standing at an Ornate Side Table That Has a Large Mirror Hanging over It. Table Is Flanked by Two Large Rocking Chairs; Mirror Reflects Light from the Two Tabletop Lamps. Is Reflected. non-projected black and white…

“I had no power to withdraw her from that gloomy solitude. I was thankful for the privilege of being with her, able to comfort her in moments of physical misery” (Braddon, 7).

Braddon, Elizabeth. “The Christmas Number.” Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, page 7, 17 Nov. 1894.

“A sudden cry from the nurse called me from the horror of that vision to stern reality, to see the life-blood ebbing from the lips I had kissed so often with all a sister's love. My poor friend never spoke again. A severe attack of hemorrhage hastened the inevitable end; and before her heart-broken lover could come to clasp the hand and gaze into her fading eyes, Violetta Hammond passed away” (Braddon, 9).

Braddon, Elizabeth. “The Christmas Number.” Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, page 9, 17 Nov. 1894.