#pure posting
Wed, 23 Jan 2019 21:21:37
Today’s highlights in my ongoing project to read through and transcribe the letters of Rachel (a wealthy Victorian girl at boarding school on the East Coast in the 1890s) include…
- Rachel’s cousin Will and his Yale roommate Allen both have the measles. Rachel shows limited sympathy (”Poor boy!”), before immediately mocking them and calling them “childish” for getting a disease only little kids get.
- Rachel and her roommate “B” (It stands for Bertha!) attempted to steal a sign (what sort idk) from a fair they went to but found they “were carefully guarded”. She wishes Will could have been there to help.
- Will has a crush on a girl named Jenny, who Rachel knows, and is constantly asking Rachel if Jenny has mentioned him.
- “B” often sits next to Rachel as she writes and suggests things to add to the letter or just generally distracts her.
- Will and Jack, who are brothers, don’t write to each other. They write to Rachel and tell her to write to the other and pass on a message for them. Rachel keeps asking why they do this, but goes along with it anyways.
- Rachel always explains why there are ink blots or areas of sloppy writing in her letters. Explanations so far include such classics as: the dinner bell just rang, it’s after lights-out and I’m writing this in the dark, “B” is shaking my arm, “B” is kissing me, this pen is broken, the postman is almost here, and there was a bee.
- For her 18th birthday Rachel received: a new Kodak camera, eighteen white rosebuds, silver manicure scissors, a pair of shell side combs, a silver pencil, and a vase of pink roses. However her favorite present was from her father who wrote to say she could just buy her own present and he would pay for it.
- Rachel is always mentioning the pictures she takes with her Kodak. I wish I knew what happened to them.
- In addition to Calvé,MarloweandSothern, Rachel has now also gone to see performances by Ellen Terry,Henry Irving,John Philip Sousa,Ignacy Jan Paderewski (playing the piano, not governing Poland), and freaking Sarah Bernhardt!
- Rachel likes to put question marks in the middle of sentences to denote sarcasm; i.e. “I am very ? sorry for you.” and “Men were not excluded and we had the pleasure ? of meeting several.”
- Your 1890s slang word of the day: “squelch” (verb) - to be lectured or punished for something. Example: “I expect to be squelched unmercifully by mama and papa.” Can also be used as a noun as in: “This term we have had nothing but squelches.”
I’m so pleased with this 1890s precedent for mid-sentence Question Marks of Sarcasm and Insincerity