"A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought my supper: to wit—some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid, but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I know not what: vinegar and sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of bread and butter, and a baked pear."
They were perfectly explicable, I mean, in the sense that she was raised in a super anti-Catholic, anti-Dissenter environment; she lived during the age of Hypatia, which I guess is reason enough. But also, for someone who flirted with universalism as much as she did (“Surely [the soul] will never be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend. No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and
This post, and several others to appear in due course, are generously sponsored by a gentleman-scholar from County San Francisco, supportive of the production and assessment of nasty novels, dealing familiarly with gamblers, misandrists and flashy reprobates. Said gentleman-scholar has re-upped his donation, so keep pitching me, academics longing for freedom. When you hear the word ‘extravaganza’, do you think of demonic dandies, tragic wives, intense nannies, and Byronic heroes? Well, if the extravaganza is…
Jane Eyre is far and away my favorite creep in literature. She's a tiny monster who roams the countryside, flinging herself on people's doorsteps, demanding that they love her or she'll drown herself in some dark elfin sea. She threatens suicide at the drop of a hat. If I can't get a new job, I will kill myself, you bastard, she tells God. I wish you would just hit me. If you won't be my friend I…
Previously in this series: How To Tell If You Are In A Noel Streatfield Novel. 1. You have one dream, and it is very small, and everyone around you wants to crush it. 2. Your grandest ambition is to open a small school with four chairs and three well-behaved students, and to someday own a vase with a flower in it, and perhaps to have a second dress. 3. You take that part about…
