Post No. 10—Fourth Chapter, Part 1

The Writing of One Novel

The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life;

 Or, The Adventure of the Rose of Fire

Copyright © 2012 by Thomas (Thos.) Kent Miller

All rights reserved

   [Note: These posts are sequential, each building on the previous. 
I suggest beginning at the beginning by scrolling down and clicking on "older posts" or by using the Blog Archive to the right to locate 
Post No. 1 in July.]

From "The Naval Treaty"

—Sidney Paget

 The Fourth Chapter, Part One   

The fourth chapter is entitled "Foreword by John H. Watson, M.D," and it is the first chapter wherein the reader encounters Allan Quatermain.  The chapter is presented as an introduction to a thick manuscript that Watson sent to 19th-century landscape painter Frederick Church. In this introduction Watson explains why he is sending Church the manuscript and details the circumstances that led he (Watson) and Quatermain to show up impulsively on Church's doorstep the month before.

Regarding Frederick Church—From 1825 to 1875, there developed a style of uniquely American landscape painting known as the Hudson River Valley School. These works were astonishingly photographic in detail while at the same time rendering nature in such romanticized and noble hues, with such immaculate emphasis on light and atmosphere, that the paintings were like windows into paradise. As the sobriquet would indicate, many of the original paintings depicted the Hudson River Valley in upper New York State. Among the foremost practitioners of this school—such as Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Asher Durand, John Kensett, and Thomas Moran—was Frederick Church, whose vast canvases portraying Niagara Falls, towering South American mountain ranges, and erupting volcanoes inspired awe in those who viewed them. Toward the end of his career, Church built his home high on a hill overlooking the Hudson River. Designed to resemble a Persian palace, he called it Olana.

From Maiwa's Revenge

—Hookway Cowles

Watson reminds Church how Quatermain had noticed two paintings in Church's sitting room, and how the juxtaposition of those images reminded Quatermain of an adventure he and his man-servant Hans experienced in Ethiopia in January 1872. One of the two paintings was El Kasné, the treasury house of Petra in Jordon. Though I've never been to Petra, I've known many people who have, and the ancient city has haunted me since I first read about it Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels when I was around ten.

El Kasné , the treasury house is displayed above the fireplace in the sitting room in Church's home Olana. (Olana State Historic Park, 60 in x 50 in.)

The other painting is less well-known, El Ayn (The Fountain, also known as Constantinople). The fountain is in the bottom right corner.

El Ayn (The Fountain, also known as Constantinople) is currently part of the collection of 

the Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (24 in. x 36 in.).

Have you ever, out of the blue, seen something that you bonded with fundamentally in an instant? In 1989, in Time magazine or Newsweek, there was a very small reproduction (I forget the point of the article; it was probably a discussion of trends in art at the time) of Albert Bierstadt's In the Mountains (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut). The actual painting is 36 inches x 50 inches, but the photo in the magazine was hardly larger than a couple of postage stamps, rather like this:

But that was enough to turn my head, and in short order I was impassioned by all things Hudson River School—in particular Frederic Church. I then learned that the Frederick Edwin Church exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., was being held over from it's original run of October 8, 1989–January 28, 1990. Very quickly, my wife and son and I flew from California to D.C. and I took in the exhibit, which was one of the high points of my life (I often wish I could time travel back to that day in the museum and relive it.) To this day Church and the Hudson River School are uppermost in my mind.

In any case, three intertwining plot threads of CRUCIBLE dealt with fountains, and so it was natural that I would gravitate to El Ayn (The Fountain) (above). Thus, it became an essential element of the fourth chapter.

Please note that the cover of The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life; Or, The Adventure of the Rose of Fire incorporates both a jagged pathway through a mountain crevice (the Siq that is portrayed in El Kasné) and a fountain, making the cover a bit of an homage to the two Church paintings here discussed:

Post No. 11 will discuss further this fourth chapter, focusing on Olana, Frederic Church's home—where he and Dr. Watson listened in wonder as Allan Quatermain related his Ethiopian adventure.

When possible, comments are appreciated.

You can find used copies of this book at https://www.amazon.com/Great-Detective-Crucible-Life/dp/0809500507

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