My Favorite British etceteras

Today I add to my list of Favorite British Television Series for you (please see TV Whip Lash, February 22 post):

• Wives and Daughters (a must see and let me know what you think)

• Foyle's War (War/Detective/Murder/Police series)

• Middlemarch (a George Eliot novel of intricate plot lines and love interests)

• Mansfield Park (not the 2007. Jane Austen would have hated it)

• The Forsyte Saga (the 1967 is amazing!)

• The Barchester Chronicles (friend Rosie shared this gem with me - fabulous)

• Upstairs, Downstairs (love.this.series! both the new and the old)

• Endeavour (new Masterpiece prequel for Inspector Morse, and stupendous)

• All Creatures Great and Small

Of course, I am very likely forgetting others again. If so, the forgotten ones will float back to these pages and make themselves known. Eventually.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/riebart/4653728769/

One of the things I like about British series is that one sees one's favorite actors floating around from series to series. For instance, Lady Mary in Downton Abbey shows up in Return To Cranford as Erminia Whyte, and the young doctor in Cranford (who marries the Vicar's lovely daughter) makes his appearance as Mr. Bingly in the 2005 fabulous Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly. He was splendid in both.

And, Hyacinth Gibson (who marries the doctor in Wives and Daughters and makes him sorry he married her) plays Lady Ludlow in Cranford (nobody marries her). Robert Hardy, who plays Sigfried in All Creatures Great and Small, plays the childless but wealthy dolt Robert Brooke in Middlemarch.  Oh! And the police lieutenant in Foyle's War (Paul Milner, who lost his leg in the war) turns up as Roger Hamley in Wives and Daughters.

I'm sorry, but I could go on and on!

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But to end, I focus momentarily upon George Eliot's Middlemarch. I have not yet read the book, but look forward to it. 

The person I think of here is Dorothea Brooke, who is wooed by the wealthy Sir James. But instead of marrying him for his wealth, Dorothea is intrigued by an older man (the Rev. Edward Casaubon), a book writer. The Reverend wants to marry her and makes a nominal effort to attract her. Fancying herself in love and having found The One, she marries only to learn that he has no love for her after all. 

You will have to watch, or read, to get the whole story. But while it is sad in some ways, you will appreciate both her faithfulness and her strength. At the end of her life (and George Eliot's book), he states the following:

"Her full nature spent itself in deeds which left no great name on the earth, but the effect of her Being on those around her was incalculable. For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and on all those who live faithfully their lives and rest in unvisited tombs."
                                                                       -George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1874

Excellently said. 

Shall we 'live faithfully' our lives? And is the effect of our Being on those around us 'incalculable'? To have such words said of us would be to know we had ended well.

Let's do that.

See you along the way!

the SconeLady

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/riebart/4653728769/">Riebart</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blahflowers/188174126/">Loz Flowers</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>