Elsie Dinsmore. By

Elsie Dinsmore is a children's book series written by Martha Finley (1828-1909) between 1867 and 1905. An adapted version has been published, but it leaves out several of the most important facts and details. Original story Initially, Elsie does not live with her parents but with her paternal grandfather, his second wife (Elsie's step-grandmother), and their six children: Adelaide, Lora, Louise, Arthur, Walter, and Enna (Enna was the youngest). Elsie's mother died soon after giving birth to her, leaving her in the care of her grandfather. Before her father comes back she becomes good friends with Rose Allison, with whom she studies the Bible. Her father was in Europe until she was almost eight years old as the first book begins. The first Elsie books deal with a constant moral conflict between Christian principles and familial loyalty. Deeper still is the warring between Christ centered principles and the "worldly" inclinations of both her Father and his family. Elsie's father is a strict disciplinarian who dictates inflexible rules by which his daughter must live. Any infraction is severely and often unjustly punished. In her father's absence Elsie has become a Christian and abides by what she has been taught is Biblical law, especially the Ten Commandments (also known as the Decalogue)- as taught to her by her dead Mother's housekeeper and then her own Nanny, Chole. Her father, being "worldy" and not a Christian at that time, regards this as ludicrous and in some cases as insolence. Elsie knows that she must obey the Word of God before that of her father and can only obey her father when his orders do not conflict with Scripture. For example, Elsie's father attempts to force her to perform an act which she considers sinful such as playing secular music or reading fiction -- "a book which was only fit for week-day reading, because it had nothing at all in it about God"-on Sunday. Their conflict culminates with her having a complete nervous breakdown as she thinks that her Father does not really love her. She begs and pleads with him to read the Bible with her to become a Christian. But his heart is hardened. The whole reason that he was in Europe and not there to raise her is due to the loss of Elise's Mother who died in child birth. After her death, Horaces own father convinced him that he had been a fool and Horace came to feel ashamed of his attachment to Elise's Mother and escaped to Europe. The entire plot of the second book, Elsie's Holidays at Roselands, revolves around his refusing to speak to her-or allow anyone else to-for several months, because she is more obedient to God than to her father. In this book, their "war of wills" which is what he considers is happening culminates in Elise coming very near to death - to the point that they shave her head hoping to abate her "brain fever". When Horace thinks that she has died he finds her Bible which she has left to him (the Bible which he knows had belonged to Elise's Mom).