[Hardy-l] -- and back to Hardy

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Thanks, Jackie, for the clarification.  "Wandering off" we may have done 
but it wasn't altogether aimless. At the back of my mind I was pondering 
your point (hope I have it right -- didn't keep the posting) about our 
Victorian antecedents becoming even more distanced from us, in 
understanding, as the years go on. And I think I was absent-mindedly 
querying that point--  as *I" went on.

It's true that much day-to-day Victorian reality is hard to grasp --as 
those "living" series /experiments testify. I recall one "Victorian" female 
telling, in the post-experiment interview,  how awful it was to be so dirty 
-- washing hair only once a week & and with horrible soap no less (not Dove 
shampoo!).  However, if you read *Walter* and some diarist's accounts (as 
also Marquez, today) you discover how frequently Victorians -even at that 
low level of society -- washed themselves and not only washed but annointed 
their bodies with herbals for invigoration, healing and sheer delightful 
fresh-scentedness. Hugh Walpole likewise gives detailed accounts of 
sluicing the body under water pumps even in icy weather -- albeit with soap 
and not with Noxzema's Citrus Scrub (who knows but that fresh, natural 
water, unadulterated by chemicals was as soft and sweet as any citrusized 
equivalent? )

Enough of that witlessness.!

So my pondering (thanks for being provoking, Jackie) was mainly spent 
weighing up the odds of actually learning *more* as time goes by, as 
opposed to less. As a Victorian matron I would certainly never have read 
*Walter* not would I, getting back to Hardy, have known about the history 
of wife sales or that women went into war zones as camp followers (cf *The 
Dynasts*) and even gave birth to babies while the battle was in progress or 
that adulterating ale with additives was common if illegal practice 
(compliments to the sharp-witted Arabella in *Jude*) and so on.

What do others think?  Are we gradually losing our understanding of our 
historical forbears or gaining? (scholars -- not Martians --  taken for 
granted here).

Cheers
Rosemarie


>Perhaps I was a little unclear here, Rosemarie. First of all may I say that
>you succinctly make the point regarding cultural dress with which I agree
>completely. My point in describing boys 'in petticoats' as an underclass was
>that until the point which you rightly call the age of reason
>Jacky