Love, Honor, and Obey

In 1769, inspired by Rousseau’s Émile, British author Thomas Day set out to train the perfect wife. He adopted foundlings of 11 and 12 years old, named them Sabrina and Lucretia, and took them to France, where he tried to rear them in isolation.

This went well at first — under Day’s direction, Sabrina wrote to one of his friends: “I love Mr. Day dearly and Lucretia. I am learning to write. … I hope I shall have more sense against I come to England. I know the cause of night and day, winter and summer. I love Mr. Day best in the world, Mr. Bicknell next, and you next.”

But it fell apart within 18 months. When the girls began to quarrel and tease him, he returned to England, placed Lucretia with a chamber milliner, and concentrated on Sabrina. But she screamed when he fired pistols at her petticoats (trying, at Rousseau’s suggestion, to accustom her to “détonations les plus terribles”), and she winced unheroically when he dropped sealing wax on her arms. Finally he released her to a boarding school, where in time she grew up to be “an elegant and amiable woman.”

In 1780, Day finally did find a wife who “often wept but never repined” at his “frequent experiments upon her temper and attachment.” But even that didn’t last — he died, ironically, while trying to break a horse.

February 24, 2012February 23, 2012 | Oddities · Society

In a Word

evancalous
adj. pleasant to embrace

clipsome
adj. fit to be embraced

February 23, 2012August 20, 2014 | Language

Math Notes

1/473684210526315789 = 0.0000000000000000021111111111111111132222222222222
22224333333333333333335444444444444444446555555555555555557666666666666666
66877777777777777777988888888888888889100000000000000000211111111111111111
32222222222222222243333333333333333354444444444444444465555555555555555576
66666666666666668777777777777777779888888888888888891000000000000000002111
11111111111111322222222222222222433333333333333333544444444444444444655555
55555555555576666666666666666687777777777777777798888888888888888910000000
00000000002111111111111111113222222222222222224333333333333333335444444444
44444444655555555555555555766666666666666666877777777777777777988888888888
88888910000000000000000021111111111111111132222222222222222243333333333333
33335444444444444444446555555555555555557666666666666666668777777777777777
77988888888888888889100000000000000000211111111111111111322222222222222222
43333333333333333354444444444444444465555555555555555576666666666666666687
77777777777777779888888888888888891000000000000000002111111111111111113222
22222222222222433333333333333333544444444444444444655555555555555555766666
66666666666687777777777777777798888888888888888910000000000000000021111111
11111111113222222222222222224333333333333333335444444444444444446555555555
55555555766666666666666666877777777777777777988888888888888889100000000000
00000021111111111111111132222222222222222243333333333333333354444444444444
44446555555555555555557666666666666666668777777777777777779888888888888888
89100000000000000000211111111111111111322222222222222222433333333333333333
54444444444444444465555555555555555576666666666666666687777777777777777798
88888888888888891000000000000000002111111111111111113222222222222222224 ...

(Thanks, William.)

February 23, 2012February 22, 2012 | Science & Math

A Modest Proposal

In 1936, after his first wife had left him, Evelyn Waugh sent a letter to her cousin Laura Herbert, asking whether “you could bear the idea of marrying me.”

“I can’t advise you in my favour because I think it would be beastly for you,” he wrote, “but think how nice it would be for me. I am restless & moody and misanthropic & lazy & have no money except what I earn and if I got ill you would starve. In fact it’s a lousy proposition. On the other hand I think I could do a Grant and reform & become quite strict about not getting drunk and I am pretty sure I should be faithful. Also there is always a fair chance that there will be another bigger economic crash in which case if you had married a nobleman with a great house you might find yourself starving, while I am very clever and could probably earn a living of some sort somewhere.”

He added, “All these are very small advantages compared with the awfulness of my character. I have always tried to be nice to you and you may have got it into your head that I am nice really, but that is all rot. It is only to you & for you. I am jealous & impatient — but there is no point in going into a whole list of my vices. You are a critical girl and I’ve no doubt that you know them all and a great many I don’t know myself.”

They were wed the following spring.

February 23, 2012March 27, 2021 | Literature

“Feminine Correspondence”

From the Annual Register, 1840: “The following civilities between two ladies lately appeared in the public papers”:

Lady Seymour presents her compliments to lady Shuckburgh, and would be obliged to her for the character of Mary Stedman, who states that she has lived twelvemonths, and still is in lady Shuckburgh’s establishment. Can Mary Stedman cook plain dishes well? make bread? and is she honest, good tempered, sober, willing, and cleanly? Lady Seymour would also like to know the reason why she leaves lady Shuckburgh’s service? Direct, under cover, to lord Seymour, Maiden Bradley.

Lady Shuckburgh presents her compliments to lady Seymour. Her ladyship’s note, dated Oct. 28, only reached her yesterday, Nov. 3. Lady Shuckburgh was unacquainted with the name of the kitchen-maid, until mentioned by lady Seymour, as it is her custom neither to apply for or give characters to any of the under servants, this being always done by the housekeeper, Mrs. Couch — and this was well known to the young woman; therefore lady Shuckburgh is surprised at her referring any lady to her for a character. Lady Shuckburgh having a professed cook, as well as a housekeeper, in her establishment, it is not very likely she herself should know anything of the abilities or merits of the under servants; therefore, she is unable to answer lady Seymour’s note. Lady Shuckburgh cannot imagine Mary Stedman to be capable of cooking for any except the servants’ hall table. — November 4, Pavilion, Hans-place.

Lady Seymour presents her compliments to lady Shuckburgh, and begs she will order her housekeeper, Mrs. Pouch, to send the girl’s character without delay; otherwise another young woman will be sought for elsewhere, as lady Seymour’s children cannot remain without their dinners because lady Shuckburgh, keeping a ‘professed cook and a housekeeper,’ thinks a knowledge of the details of her establishment beneath her notice. Lady Seymour understood from Stedman that, in addition to her other talents, she was actually capable of dressing food fit for the little Shuckburghs to partake of when hungry.

(“To this note was appended a clever pen and ink vignette, by the Queen of Beauty, representing the three little Shuckburghs, with large turnip-looking heads and cauliflower wigs, sitting at a round table, eating and voraciously scrambling for mutton chops, dressed by Mary Stedman, who is seen looking on with supreme satisfaction, while lady Shuckburgh appears in the distance in evident dismay.”)

Madam, — Lady Shuckburgh has directed me to acquaint you that she declines answering your note, the vulgarity of which is beneath contempt; and although it may be the characteristic of the Sheridans, to be vulgar, coarse, and witty, it is not that of ‘a lady,’ unless she happens to have been born in a garret and bred in a kitchen. Mary Stedman informs me that your ladyship does not keep either a cook or a housekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a mutton chop. If so, I apprehend that Mary Stedman, or any other scullion, will be found fully equal to cook for, or manage the establishment of, the Queen of Beauty. I am, your ladyship’s, &c., Elizabeth Couch (not Pouch).’

February 22, 2012February 22, 2012 | Society

Jackson Strive

You and I spot a $20 bill on the street. To divide it, we agree to an auction: Each of us will write down a bid, and the high bidder will keep the $20 but pay the amount of his own bid to the other player. If we submit the same bid then we’ll split the $20. What should you bid?

	Select Click for Answer
If you bid too low (say, $1), then in the worst case I’ll bid a penny higher (leaving you with $1.01). If you bid too high (say, $19), then in the worst case you’ll win the auction but have to give me most of your winnings. Bidding $10 guarantees you at least $10 profit: If I bid higher than I’ll have to pay you my bid, and if I bid lower then you’ll win the $20 and have to pay me only $10. But bidding $9.99 also guarantees you $10 if I bid higher — and it nets you an extra penny if I bid lower. That’s your best bet.

Click for Answer

February 22, 2012January 31, 2013 | Puzzles

Smile!

Evidently a lover of broccoli, Elmer Walter of Pennsylvania saw a need for special tableware in 1907:

The primary object of the invention is to provide a table implement, such as a knife, fork, or other device with a mirror suitably secured in the handle of the implement, so that the user of the implement may have ready at hand a mirror for the purpose of inspecting the teeth in the mouth or the mouth or other portions of the face generally, at any time desired by the user of the implement.

“Oftentimes a patron of a restaurant or cafe finds the need of a mirror to discover a substance which has become lodged in the teeth,” he writes. A mirrored knife “may be used by him or her for the purpose indicated above substantially without attracting any attention.”

February 22, 2012February 21, 2012 | Technology

A Niente

I was seriously tormented by the thought of the exhaustibility of musical combinations. The octave consists only of five tones and two semitones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways, of which but a small proportion are beautiful: most of these, it seemed to me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers, to strike out, as these had done, entirely new and surpassingly rich veins of musical beauty. This source of anxiety may, perhaps, be thought to resemble that of the philosophers of Laputa, who feared lest the sun should be burnt out.

— John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, 1873

February 21, 2012February 20, 2012 | Science & Math

Green Ties

The Martian Census Bureau compiled the marital history of every male and female Martian, living and dead:

Never married: 6,823,041
Married once: 7,354,016
Married twice: 1,600,897
Married three times: 171,013
Married four times: 2,682

What’s wrong with these figures?

	Select Click for Answer
The total number of Martians married an odd number of times must be even (it takes two to get married, even on Mars). But 7,354,016 + 171,013 gives 7,525,029, an odd number. Contributed by Sidney Kravitz, Dover, N.J., to the Journal of Recreational Mathematics 2:4, October 1969.