In Chapter 12 of Austen’s Emma, Mr. Woodhouse questions his daughter Isabella’s decision to spend the autumn with her children at South End and adds sea air and swimming to his list of dangerous activities. “It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here. I never had…
Author: Maria
“A charming amusement for young people”
In Chapter 6 of Pride and Prejudice, Sir William Lucas and Mr Darcy exchange some thoughts on the merits of dancing… Sir Lucas proffers “What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished society.” A less than impressed…
Image of the Week: “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two”
This week’s image is taken from Thomas Hood’s “Hood’s Own: or, Laughter from Year to Year” (1855) and aptly depicts the shenanigans of Fagin’s gang in Dickens’ Oliver Twist (1838). In a humorous vignette in Chapter 10, The Artful Dodger and Charley Bates show off their pickpocketing prowess to an amused but naive Oliver… “When the breakfast was…
Insult of the Week: “An extraordinary specimen of human fungus”
In chapter 26 of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House (1853), Mr. George Rouncewell and his assistant Phil Squod are busy preparing for a day of work in the shooting gallery when they are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Grandfather Smallweed and his granddaughter Judy. Mr. Smallweed describes their engagement of a hackney cab for the journey and…
Insult of the Week: “You double-distilled ould sthrap”
This week’s insult is provided by William Carleton’s The Black Prophet: A Tale of Irish Famine (1847). Following Condy Dalton’s admission of love for another woman, a furious Sarah M’Gowan returns home where her stepmother Nelly pushes her to boiling point… “You’re all out of it,” replied Nelly; “her blood’s up, now, an’ I’m not prepared…
Insult of the Week: Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say but they say it charmingly.
This week’s insult is provided by Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). While discussing Dorian’s apparent interest in the actress Sibyl Vane, Lord Henry Wotton states: “My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of…
Coxcombs and Foppish Haircuts
In chapter 25 of Jane Austen’s Emma, the titular character is somewhat perplexed by Frank Churchill’s “foppish” decision to travel sixteen miles for some nineteenth-century “manscaping”. “Emma’s very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed…
Never underestimate the power wielded by the lady’s maid
“Among all privileged spies, a lady’s-maid has the highest privileges; it is she who bathes Lady Theresa’s eyes with eau-de-cologne after her ladyship’s quarrel with the colonel; it is she who administers sal-volatile to Miss Fanny when Count Beaudesert, of the Blues, has jilted her. She has a hundred methods for the finding out of her mistress’ secrets….
Quotation of the Week: A selfish, cold-hearted Sybarite
Miss Alicia Audley is distinctly unimpressed with her cousin Robert’s sudden interest in her enigmatic new step-mother and isn’t afraid to say so: “…pray amuse yourself in your own way; loll in an easy-chair all day, with those two absurd dogs asleep on your knees; spoil my lady’s window-curtains with your cigars and annoy everybody in the house…
The Knavish System of Scientific Research
In Chapter 19 of H.G Wells’ The Invisible Man (1897), the central character Griffin angrily describes the unscrupulous world of scientific research and speaks of his refusal to share credit with his professor for his discoveries. Instead, he opts to go it alone until his research is ready to take the world by storm… “And…
Image of the Week: #LenaWantsMe
Image taken from Edward Douglas Fawcett’s science fiction novel Hartmann the Anarchist (1893).
On the Joy of Tea-Making
In chapter 25 of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), the narrator meditates on tea as a bewitching accessory for the attractive lady of Victorian sensation fiction. “Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea. The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement,…
The Sea of Books 