Episode Details

Listener mail is warmly welcomed 🙋‍♀️

Helloooo, and please I beg of you go straight to 25 minutes if you’re not in the mood for silences, witterings, stuttering, birds, hedgehog rustles and poor (very poor) production quality.  

But then, oh we get to swim in Charlotte Brontë’s beautiful mind, imagining rooms as though appreciated in a painting by a Dutch master.  It’s almost a meditative experience, where items of furniture are lightly and beautifully set out before us and the fall of a curtain is given some sort of sacred importance.  This fine, fine chapter, where we are in the mind of a heroine we are growing to care for, settles us deliciously in a soothing home where we feel safe and cared for.  Poor Charlotte, writing this with all her sisters and her mother dead, must have surely felt a desire for such soothing and comfort.  Not gushing sympathy but gentle, poised comfort of the sort that perhaps - just perhaps - might give her the courage to hold on to her poise.  The scene with the beautiful tea items is also very perfect.  The Englishness of it and all that implied in the 19th century and still, perhaps, even now. 

I wish you a peaceful Thursday evening.  Thank you so very much for your time and company.  I appreciate it hugely! 🌳

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Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached over 80,000 downloads.  

Don’t try to listen in order, unless you’re very committed.  Dip in and out, choosing an episode based on the title information.  Whether you are interested in history, literature, poetry or one-to-one chatting, I try to give you something that will interest you.  This is a podcast for the curious, the kind and - possibly - the suffering or lonely.  

Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of this podcast.  Thank you Tom🙏 

Gretel invites you to accompany her as she navigates the world a day at a time;  the podcast is unscripted, it’s ad-free.

Gretel loves the world and history, architecture, literature and people. And so is determined to walk this path with light footsteps and with humour and warmth.  Let’s gather up the beautiful things and ponder them in our hearts.

Top 10 in Global Rankings according to Listen Notes.  I would be so grateful if you would spare the time to give me a kind review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 😬☺️🥴

Previous guests include  historian Tom Holland; Sir Richard Eyre; Actors Guy Henry and Enzo Cilenti; Art historian Philip Mould; Writer David Willem; Author Nicola Cornick; Composer Matthew Coleridge; Vicar Angela T...