The Optimist by E.M. Delafield

Name: The Optimist
Author: E.M. Delafield

Owen Quentillian, returning to England after years abroad and war service, revisits St. Gwenllian, the home of Canon Fenwick Morchard, who had fostered him as a boy after his parents returned to India. Recalling his childhood there—including the episode in which young Adrian Morchard lied about failing to deliver a dying parishioner's message, provoking one of the Canon's terrifying rages followed by tearful forgiveness—Owen accepts the Canon's warm, effusive invitation to stay, aware that the Canon's household has scarcely changed in spirit. He finds the Canon still magnetic, dominating, and relentlessly, rhetorically optimistic, prone to long monologues on faith, duty, and the decline of modern manners. The Canon's grown children remain arranged around him much as in childhood: Lucilla, the eldest daughter, unmarried and serving as his secretary and household manager, detached and clear-eyed where the others are not; Valeria ("Val"), restless and yearning for a fuller life after wartime canteen work in France; Flora ("Flossie"), gentle and absorbed in music; and Adrian, the favorite son, charming, evasive, and drifting since leaving the army, currently infatuated with a vivacious young woman named Olga Duffle. An elder son, David, remains abroad in India. Owen, coolly rationalist and self-consciously modern, finds himself falling for Valeria despite—or because of—their opposed views on religion, which she insists must remain undiscussed between them. They become engaged, to the Canon's evident joy, though Val privately confesses she is not truly in love with Owen, only fond of him and eager to please her father. Owen accepts this candor and proceeds regardless, priding himself on his passionless, "modern" detachment. At a rain-soaked gathering featuring parlour games and popular songs that offend Owen's and the Canon's tastes alike, Valeria is stirred by her sister Flora's singing and slips outside with Captain George Cuscaden, a young officer bound for Canada, to whom she realizes she has long been drawn. They declare their love. Val confesses everything to her father, who reacts with shattering anger and grief at what he sees as her dishonor, then, after an agonized night, forgives her. Owen releases Val from their engagement with studied equanimity, insisting he feels no real pain, and quietly departs for his own newly inherited property, Stear, left facing the prospect of solitude there. Val and Cuscaden marry hastily and leave for Canada, Val embracing a plainer, more active future far from St. Gwenllian's intellectual and devotional atmosphere. Attention then turns to Adrian, whose pursuit of Olga Duffle prompts a visit from her blunt, prosperous father, Mr. Duffle, who insists the match be ended since he intends Olga to "look high." The Canon, mortified, agrees to intervene, though Mr. Duffle leaves a generous charitable cheque behind. Adrian, who had half-seriously floated taking orders and claiming the living at Stear partly as a means of being able to marry Olga, is crushed by the rejection, briefly declares himself "off religion" and embittered against his father, then resolves to make his own way in journalism in London. The Canon, though disappointed, grants him an increased allowance and releases him with emotional blessing. Life at St. Gwenllian settles into a subdued routine: news arrives of Valeria's son born in Canada, softening the Canon's resentment; Adrian writes infrequently, running up debts that the Canon quietly covers while chiding him in long, anxious letters about extravagance, reticence, and slack correspondence. The Canon completes his life's scholarly labor, a manuscript titled "Leonidas of Alexandria," only to have it rejected by publisher after publisher as commercially unviable; offered publication only if he pays toward costs—money he cannot spare while subsidizing Adrian—he sets the manuscript aside with practiced, serene resignation and begins a new commentary on Philippians, aided as always by Lucilla. Owen, now installed near enough to remain a family confidant, is asked by the Canon to look in on Adrian in London. He returns with unwelcome news: Adrian has taken paid work on the staff of a controversial paper run by a man named Hale, known for hostility to the Church—a development that alarms Flora and Lucilla as a betrayal of everything their father has taught, and which Owen has only begun explaining, in terms of Hale's reputation, when the account before us breaks off.

By E.M. Delafield · First published 2023 · Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Comedy · 5 chapters · 89,029 words

First lines

The ship swung slowly away from the side of the wharf. Several people on board then said, "Well, we're off at last! " to several other people who had only been thinking of saying it.

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The Optimist is listed on Textopian as a novel by E.M. Delafield, dated 2023 CE.

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Work type: Novel
Author: E.M. Delafield
Date: 2023 CE
Language: English
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Comedy, Satire, Social commentary
Length: 89,029 words
Structure: 5 chapters, 2,849 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Discussion starters

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Genres

Fiction — Broadly categorized, The Optimist is a work of fiction since it presents a narrative based, though loosely inspired by real events, is primarily of the author's imagination.
Historical Fiction — Set in the 1920s, The Optimist captures the societal norms, customs, and settings relevant to this era, making it a historical fiction.
Comedy — The Optimist features humor and levity, making it fall under the genre of Comedy.
Satire — Delafield's novel uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices within the society of post-World War I, making it a Satire.