Of Inspiration, Motivation, and Creation
How I found myself in the Wardrobe
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Readers frequently ask me what the inspiration for the Wardrobe Series was. That is a nearly impossible question to answer, especially considering that the arc of creation took eight years (2015-2022). One time, it is about the deeper examination of the characters; another, it is about the mystical qualities of the universe and life itself.
At its base, the Wardrobe was an intensely personal exploration using Austen's characters to speak truths I uncovered deep inside myself. My life, in many ways, is laid before you.
My dedication to the final book in the Series, "The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy," speaks to this.
At long last, the road climbs a final ridge.
My travels began in small places but quickly led to canvases without boundaries.
Large ideas pushed me off accustomed pathways through the mists of memory and demanded I confront wrenching pain.
Dust and rain, though, gave way to sunny reaches as truth shaped the story.
This book, this series, all that I am and will be, is dedicated to Pam.
Inside of that dedication is my own exploration of Love, and at the heart of The Wardrobe—beyond the Rules of the Wardrobe—lies the universal constant exemplified by Jane Austen in each of her novels: Love. And thus, the characters in each of the novels in this Pride and Prejudice Variation are motivated by the various loves
.
For me, the Seven Loves are the ultimate Rules that govern the universe:
C.S. Lewis, in his 1958 lectures on the BBC, elucidated the four types of love found in the Bible:
Storge: empathy bond
Philia: friendship bond
Eros: erotic/romantic bond
Agape: unconditional love
The Bennet Wardrobe operates in the service of these and other loves.
The Fifth Love being exagoras agapis: redemptive love.
This is the love where we strive to become better versions of ourselves.
Niebuhr identified the Sixth Love: synchotikí agape, or forgiveness.
Such love makes all human life possible.
In the end, though, the first six Loves are bound together by the greatest of all…
The Seventh Love: thysiakí agape or sacrificial love.
There is no greater love than this for a man to lay down his life for his friends. John 13:15
***
As I worked on the stories of the Bennets of Longbourn—by necessity, I had to go back to 1690 when Christopher Bennet commissioned the great cabinet maker and mystic, Grinling Gibbons, to build a wardrobe for his wife—I discovered that the books told me where they wished to go. Originally conceived as three freestanding books to examine the natures of Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, the novels and the characters insisted there was something underneath that had to be canvased.
Suddenly, I was not writing three separate books but rather a series of interlocking tales in service of a greater cause—the re-establishing of the balance necessary for the universe to continue. Within that framework, I was required to consider the unwrapping of the true nature of all the characters. In the process, I had to create new characters (Henry Fitzwilliam, for instance) to give detail to the terrain through which all the Bennets now had to move.
My work was also informed by the influences on the American creative movement of the first four decades of the Twentieth Century—Modernism and The Modernists. The Zen aesthetic that motivated Stieglitz, O’Keefe, Copland, Steinbeck, and Ford (the film director, not the automaker) grew from a little book—The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō—allowed me to find the contemplative symbolism in kintsugi and jujitsu. The concept that the universe’s design can be uncovered in the simplest things grew into the ultimate reveal of the goal of all eight books, the Tea Ceremony at the Kyoto Imperial Palace’s skokin tei.
She bent and picked up a leaf, colored with its autumnal coat, and understood that it, too, like the branch from which it had fallen, contained every scintilla of creation’s secret glories. While the Russians and the Americans raced to use their scientific power to crack the cosmos like a ripe walnut, Elizabeth recognized that what they sought to plunder from the universe rested in her hand.
Elizabeth’s contemplations have been heard in the words of writers throughout human history—how the smallest things show the greatness of creation. I hope you find this use of Jane Austen speaking to greater things for you as well.
The following excerpt is from Volume Eight of the Bennet Wardrobe Series, The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy. I ask you to read this with the same mindset of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam. Allow the overwhelming peace of their tea ceremony to flow over you as they immerse themselves in the universe’s currents.
Series Links to Amazon (Kindle, KindleUnlimited, Paperback, Audible). Also available worldwide at all Amazon sites.
UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0CCN46XJF?ref_=dbs_p_pwh_rwt_anx_a_lnk&storeType=ebooks
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This excerpt is ©2022 by Donald P. Jacobson. Any reproduction is prohibited. Any use of this excerpt to train AI is expressly prohibited. Published in the United States of America.
Chapter Fifty-eight
Neither spoke as they entered the machiai and sat side by side. Neither touched the other, although their communion was as profound in this cathedra as if they grappled in the simultaneous love-death embrace. And neither could know that the other had passed through that gateway of self-awareness, the most solitary of journeys.
Elizabeth and William contemplated the images of clouds reflected upon the lake’s mirror-like surface, its wavelets softly lapping the shore beneath the machiai’s eaves. The lady’s face bore a slight smile as her brown eyes meditated upon the scene that shimmered beneath a draft dancing across the water.
If I were to look at the actual clouds, I would have to crane my neck out from beneath the eaves. How clever was the architect, though, to have found a way to bring the heavens into sight. Yet, like Monsieur Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” we view only a flat reflection, however beautiful, of the fluffy creations floating above. They still are imitations. The masters caution us that all reality is contingent upon subjective vision shaped by our inner selves.[i]
That I can accept so long as what I mold includes William.
Darcy, for his part, was floating upon a tide unlike any he had felt since before his mother had died over fifty subjective—plus a hundred more objective—years ago. Her loss had cast him adrift, a half orphan, although his father's withdrawal completed the dour title. Lady Anne’s love, though, had been his Pole Star. After her death, he had splashed through life, nearly breaking his soul upon despair’s reefs until Elizabeth shined through the mists. In this place, though, he had found energy that rimmed his fingertips in an eldritch aura.
A hum fills me. This is a sound obscured by my life’s pitch and sings a hymn of endless possibilities. Is this new, or has it always been thus? Have I been deaf to it for all these years? I feel like a bee dipping the sweetest nectar. Epiphanies and revelations: of such have been my existence for decades before I came here, and, I pray, those times still awaiting me. If I strip away everything I have used to divert myself, I find nothing left but one gem, a wellspring from which I can drink the water of life.
His sigh drew Elizabeth’s attention. “Are you sad or otherwise?”
William replied in a low voice. “There is an element of regret, to be sure, that shapes me. It rises from a realization that I have missed so much by protecting myself from the vagaries of human interaction. I loved our first twenty-five years together, but I isolated myself in the comforting warmth of your love, which made me less than diligent in building any connections beyond those that already existed in the year eleven. In fact, Edward Benton was my only new friend after our marriage, and he joined the family; I didn’t have to seek him out.
“Only after you left was I forced to expand my circle. I am proud to say that I fell in with wonderful men and women who brought me no small measure of joy.”
“You learned what you needed,” Elizabeth said gently.
He nodded. “Lydia referred to this happy outcome as due to exagoras agapis.”
Her hand stole across the worn bench and captured his fingers. “The Fifth Love: that which redeems and encourages us to become the best versions of ourselves.
“The playful spirit that seems to rule all of our actions blessed you with that which he has only ever given the Bennets. ’Twas painful, your time in the wilderness, but that passage prepared you for what can become our destiny in this bright here/now.”
Further conversation, philosophical or otherwise, was prevented as their two acolytes appeared, now dressed in plain dove-gray robes. The young lady bowed and said, “We are here to guide you to the top of the roji—the way laid between here and the tearoom. Where before you trod paths from the outside world to this place, first alone and then together in a reflection of your mortal existence, now you will move side by side, but not as one, along the roji. No two people can grasp any experience identically.
“The roji leading to Shokin-tei will snap all links to life not of this place. The serenity and purity of the garden will prepare you to accept and embrace the aesthetic of the tearoom. Shokin-tei is not dependent upon any morality, politics, or religion. Your time within will assist in appreciating the greatness found in the perfection of small things.”
She and her comrade left them before the rough-hewn flags dropping from the machiai. A trail of stepstones looped back under the evergreen twilight from which they had earlier emerged. The carpet of dried pine needles muffled every noise that had served as the backdrop of their recent lives. Silently and reverently, the couple slipped along the path, not daring to profane this sacred precinct with anything but the sounds of their breath, loud in their ears in this muted realm. Only unspoken thoughts accompanied them between moss-covered stone lanterns lit in the afternoon peace. These silent sentinels cast into deep relief the rock-laid route, damp in the cool humidity.
***
An opening in the woods beckoned the pilgrims. Before them was a modest wood-frame structure with a thatch roof and offset gables that reminded Elizabeth of a beached fishing smack flipped upside down. They climbed to the narrow porch under which their young guides waited.
Again, bows were exchanged, zōri were slid from feet, and the four moved through the doorway past blue-checked paper screens pushed aside to leave an unobstructed view of Katsura’s lake. However, this was not their destination. The attendants ushered Darcy and Elizabeth deeper into the building. There, low on a wall, was a tiny doorway—no more than thirty inches square. The young woman gracefully dropped to her knees and crept through.
At Darcy’s skeptical look, the man explained, “Humility, sir. None of us is lesser or better than any other in the room beyond. This portal symbolically strips away all our pretensions and leaves us open to accept the gift of tea. If you had been samurai, you would divest yourself of your blades here.”
One by one—Elizabeth first, followed by William, and then, finally, the man—each crawled into the room. The woman knelt before a small niche in the back wall. When the others arrived, she bowed to a flower arrangement made of a single sprig of orchids, white blossoms soaring and then bending gracefully in a lacquered vase, its sides beaded with moisture, some of which had left trails on the blackwork in their rush to puddle around the foot. The other three guests, in turn, dipped their heads in respect of the tea master’s contemplation.
Aged wooden fixtures bore the smoke stains of the charcoal brazier over which an iron teapot simmered. The kettle sounded notes, not controlled and organized like the variations scored from Tristan’s chord at the Beach House but more akin to waves beating on a shore at the edge of hearing or trees rustling on a windy hillside. The room was sparsely furnished. Woven rush tatami mats covered its floor.
The only other items present were those intended for tea preparation. Five bowls—asymmetrical from their repairs by a kintsugi artisan—with golden amendments urged the user to consider their unique story, which separated them from their utilitarian calling. These rested off to one side. Another bowl in which a wooden whisk rested, a delicate enameled box with a bladed stick leaning against it, and a dipper atop a precisely folded white napkin were arrayed before the tea master’s area. The group lowered themselves onto the mat opposite. Upon seeing William’s difficulty in kneeling, the woman left the room and returned with a small stool.
In a soft voice, the man explained the importance of the items laid before them and the celebration of asymmetry—from the design of the teahouse to the cups in which their tea would be prepared and served. He finally noted that while they were four, the tea master made a fifth, an ideal—and odd—number for the tea ceremony. Then he fell silent, as did the room.
As the group’s breathing settled into a near-synchronous pattern, a screen slid to one side, and the tea master entered.
He received their obeisance and replied with one of his own. Reverence and honor filled this dignified welcome. Even those sentiments vanished into the room’s atmosphere, gently colored by the sounds of boiling water merging with the breeze rattling leaves on the other side of white parchment screens.
The master spread the skirts of his dark grey tea gown away from his knees, and he assumed a meditative pose, eyes closed. Into this stillness, each soul reached for that elusive nirvana. William saw invisible brushes streaking over his eyelids’ canvas to create a birch grove akin to those near Miami House. But these trees were on a different bluff, one that overlooked an ocean illuminated by the rising moon. So vivid was this idyllic setting that, when he turned, he felt and then saw Elizabeth, her frosted chocolate locks undone and whipped by unseen currents. On his left, the young man had vanished to be replaced by the yellow filament that had blessed Darcy’s waking dreams in an earlier here/now. Of Elizabeth’s guide maiden and the tea master, he saw nothing.
***
Elizabeth understood that the tea ceremony was an exercise in Taoist discipline. The goal was to appreciate the perfection of the master’s efforts; thus, the audience needed to be receptive to his actions. However, she was not only Elizabeth Darcy, the graceful mistress of Pemberley, but also Lizzy Bennet, the curious child of a bibliophile whose horizons were infinite but ended at his bookroom door. On the other hand, his daughter found delight in the brown luminescence of a live centipede scurrying for cover rather than a flat pen-and-ink engraving bound into a taxonomy. Elizabeth banked experiences against the day when infirmity would confine her to her home.
She had so desired this, and now she was unwilling to miss a moment by falling into herself. While anticipation did shape her aura, Elizabeth also kept that eagerness in check. Instead, she split that portion of her being away from her primary consciousness through methods revealed to her by Eileen. The young girl craving novelty was allowed to see and hear but not to disturb the proceedings soon to begin. The mature lady, the skilled observer, remained in control of all that was Elizabeth, and that woman sat with her eyes wide open.
At first glance, the tea master was an old but ordinary man. Some clues led Elizabeth to believe that he was of great age. Liver spots on his hands, resting quietly upon his thighs, spoke of his advanced years. The skin of his face was pulled tightly over sinew and bone, giving him a wizened appearance. But the envelope was not the letter within. When the master first stepped into the room, his feet seemed to float above the tatami. And when he bowed and knelt, his movements displayed the agility of a much younger man.
Elizabeth’s study of the tea master came to an abrupt halt when his eyes snapped open and looked upon her with uncanny familiarity as if he had long known every bit of her personality. However, his gaze carried no judgment, only benevolence. Suddenly, it was as if she and the master were the only occupants in the room. The other three betrayed no awareness of the pas de deux in their midst.
Oh my, he has Bennet Eyes! But while of our unique cast, they are of a nature I have never seen before, cycling from nearly black to silver and then flickering between blue and green. What…
<CALM, TAKE IN THE PEACE OF THIS PLACE>
<QUESTION NOT BUT TAKE DESTINY’S HAND>
<THE PATH IS NEAR COMPLETE>
As the voiceless sound reshaped her, Elizabeth settled deeper onto her haunches, her heels grounding her as they pushed into her sitz bones. The touch of her feet, her weight falling heavily upon her toes, brought Elizabeth back into the world that had fled from the onslaught across the ether.
Across the mat, the tea master began the complex choreography of making a simple cup of tea. He measured tea powder, dipped and poured hot water into one of the kintsugi bowls, and whisked the mixture until properly frothed. Every step was performed precisely and solemnly five times, with the tea master serving himself last. Each guest—as they breathed the tea’s essence—considered the kintsugi patterns and reflected on their bowl’s passage from its first firing to their hands, how it had been shaped—as had they—by life. After they returned the bowls to the master, he wiped each one with a hemp cloth kept for that purpose.
Then arrived the final step of the ceremony. As chief guest, Elizabeth used a ritually purified silk cloth to examine the tea implements used to prepare the tea. She subjected each—from the chashaku (tea scoop) to the hishaku (ladle)—to minute scrutiny. She was surprised that common bamboo formed the tools, bleached alabaster through ages of use and cleaning.
“Master, may I be permitted a remark that begs a question?” His nod prompted her to proceed. “Your tools are well made and suited to their purpose. We sit, however, in Katsura’s pre-eminent tearoom. There may be those who would express wonder at finding the Imperial household using bamboo utensils.”
The tea master smiled. “Your observation is penetrating, revealing your deep understanding of the failing you call human pride. The first part of your statement is all that is necessary. These simple devices are made for their function. The scoop is shaped from one length of bamboo. How many others would be required to measure the matcha from the caddy into the bowl? The ladle is but two pieces. Again, are more needed?
“My hands made these for my hands. If you had chosen to make a chashaku or a hishaku, those would be fit for you, but not me. I could not use your scoop and ladle to properly make tea, for they would not have that innate attachment to me and would render an imperfect result. That would profane the ceremony.
“Those who would look down on these implements have not learned the lesson of the doorway.” He pointed across the room to the low square portal. “Humility is the antidote for pride. The ruler who seeks to impress his guests with jade, silver, and amber is less than the humble rice farmer who offers his chipped clay bowl for a monk to dip from the town well. Vainglory will be forgotten, but the bards will sing of honest men sharing their last crust.
“The implements are not made for the tearoom. The tearoom is made for the implements. Would tea be any more refreshing if ivory measured it? Would the water brew hotter if a golden ladle were used? Would the tea mean any less if the wind came down from Fujiyama and swept away this Imperial pavilion?”
These words reminded William and Elizabeth of all they had overcome in their years of helping each other grow. Now, the master’s words again reminded them of the fantastic realm beyond their eyelids. They understood that even the structured flawlessness of the tea ceremony was but a simulacrum of the perfection toward which they both reached. They had learned that only through the most potent force—love—could they hope to find their way into that enlightened state and Home.
[i] Elizabeth had discovered this specific René Magritte surrealist painting in Pemberley’s art collection. In another universe, the painting known as “The Treachery of Images” (1929) is displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Lovely post! I love the book covers and the tea ceremony! So elaborate and yet simp!e too. It seemed so calm and serene.