The Sunday Salon: Some Tame Gazelle

Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:

Something to love, oh, something to love.

~Thomas Haynes Bayly

Ah, something to love. That is indeed a major focus in Barbara Pym’s delightful novel, Some Tame Gazelle, in which we find a small clutch of English matrons looking for someone on whom to bestow their ardor. For Harriet Bede, it’s the village curate of the day, the hapless young man who has been assigned to their parish and by default becomes the objet du jour of Harriet’s affection. In today’s parlance, she would be called a cougar for the merciless way she flirts with the young men. But in the confines of the 1950’s when this novel is set, there’s something rather sweet about it- even though Harriet keeps refusing the marriage proposals of the ever so proper Count Bianco, who would be a perfect match.

And then there is Harriet’s…