Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons |
Fanny Burney's comments in a letter to her friend and second "Daddy" Mr. Crisp, April 1776.*******
Ow.
*Mrs. Maria Rishton, Fanny's close, flighty, spirited friend.
**Chesington, the private, rural home where Mr. Crisp boarded, and where Fanny and Maria often stayed.
***"jacket and coat": jacket and petticoat. "Coat", the 1880s-era editor of Fanny's early journals tells us, was an old term for "petticoat", and when Fanny edited her journals later, she often corrected the word to read "petticoat".
****"rusty and powdered": "rusty" was often used to describe black garments of which the dye, never fast, had faded in spots. "Powdered", I am guessing refers to some of her hair powder having fallen on it. Ugh.
*****"affronted". In this case, may mean something on the order of being snubbed, or worse.
******"mean". In that day, mean usually meant poor, penurious, of low means.
*******The Early Diary of Frances Burney, 1768-1778. Vol. II. Edited by Annie Raine Ellis. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1913, pp. 138-139.
No comments:
Post a Comment