Box Hill

[poliphilo]

Box Hill is a beauty spot on the North Downs, near Dorking, in Surrey. Looking south on a fine day- like yesterday- you can see across two counties to the Devil's Dyke and Chanctonbury Ring.

Janeites will know it as the place where Emma snubbed Miss Bates and was reprimanded by Mr Knightley.



Peter Labelliere (actually Labilliere) was a friend of Benjamin Franklin's, a supporter of the American revolution, an enlightenment thinker, a lover of Box Hill- and a magnet for tall stories. One of them- which is at least partly true- is that he chose to be buried with his head down because "the world is topsy-turvy and I will be righted at the last". Another story has him stipulating that his landlady's children should dance on his coffin. The grave (he was buried in unconsecrated ground and without religious ceremony) lies beside a footpath behind the visitor's centre.

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Wonderful pictures.

When you said Box Hill, I immediately thought Emma! Are all the people seated in the top picture watching a re-enactment of the snubbing of Miss Bates?

And I love the Labilliere story.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I had a quick look at that passage in Emma before posting this.

Austen takes the landscape entirely for granted and doesn't say anything about the view. How resolutely unWordsworthian she was!

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

I think the lack of landscape description here might be an indicator of Emma Woodhouse's self-absorption - I seem to remember Austen waxes quite lyrical about the scenery around Lyme in Persuasion...

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of when I was in high school. A teacher learned that my dad was in the funeral business and told me to ask him what would be the best way for him (the teacher) to be buried. My dad suggested they sharpen his head and screw him into the ground.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You mean there's a good way to be buried?

Listen, when I'm dead you can do what you like with the remains.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I'm going to plant mushrooms on you!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bon appetit.