by Bill Peschel
[Back] Hotel Metropole: One of Sydney’s great hotels, built in 1890 by the Australian Coffee Palace Co. The hotel’s 300 guests could enjoy spectacular views from the rooftop promenade, the choice of several dining rooms, sumptuous furnishings, and electric lights. Notable guests included Rudyard Kipling and Jack London, who was refused by the night staff the use of an extra candle to write by when his light failed. For that, he castigated the hotel as “managed by Barbarians.” The hotel was closed in 1969 and demolished.
[Back] Tennysons and Merediths: Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was one of the great poets of Victorian England. George Meredith (1828-1909) was an English novelist whose obscure complex prose anticipated Henry James and James Joyce. Conan Doyle befriended Meredith and in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” has Holmes delay talking about the case with Watson in favor of Meredith.
[Back] Moriartys and Whibleys: Moriarty, of course, was Holmes’ criminal counterpart, the “Napoleon of Crime” who ruled London’s underworld. Charles Whibley (1859-1930) was the English journalist and author whose A Book of Scoundrels recorded the deeds of notorious criminals such as Charles Peace, Moll Cutpurse, and Jack Sheppard.
[Back] Misgave: An old word meaning to fill with doubt or failing of confidence.
[Back] Test match: A grueling test of the abilities of two cricket teams (hence the name), a Test match is played over four innings, which can last as long as five days. Since 1877, England and Australia have competed in a Test match held every two years. In 1882, after England lost its first Test match at home, a trophy containing “the Ashes,” to represent the death of the nation’s superiority in cricket, was created.
[Back] Maltese Cross: A cross-like symbol consisting of four “V”-shaped elements with the single-point ends meeting in the center. Associated with the Knights of Malta, a Roman Catholic military order from the Middle Ages, and by extension to the island itself.
[Back] I do not like thee, Dr. Fell: A nursery rhyme attributed to satirical English poet Tom Brown (1662-1704). As a student at Oxford, he had been expelled by the college’s dean, Dr. Fell, who gave him one chance to return if he could translate an epigram from Martial:
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
This roughly translates as “I do not love you, Sabidius, but I can not say why / But I can say to you, that I do not like you.” Instead, Brown chose a clever variation:
I do not love thee, Dr Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not love thee, Dr Fell.
According to legend, Brown was pardoned.
[Back] Brummagem: Cheap, shoddy, low-quality goods. Pronounced “bromwich-ham,” it is also what Birmingham, England, is called by the locals in their dialect. The pejorative was popularized in the 1680s as the city’s expanding metal industries, especially its swords, was considered a threat to London manufacturers.
[Back] Humpy: An aboriginal word for a small temporary shelter made of branches and tree bark. It was adopted by white settlers who added canvas, blankets, and other scraps.
[Back] Cadger: A poor man, beggar, or thief.
[Back] Moleskins: A heavy, woven cotton fabric known for being soft and durable and able to resist high winds.
[Back] Shout for a cove: Buy a round of drinks as payment for delivering the letter. A shout refers to the way you call the bartender, and cove is slang for a good fellow, the kind you’d buy a drink for.
[Back] Of the Regency: The era from 1811 to 1820 when George III’s mental illness became so severe that it was decided that his son would rule as Prince Regent. Upon his father’s death in 1820, he became George IV. The Regency era represented a unique time in British history, marked by elegance in fashion and architecture, intermittent war with Napoleon, a highly stratified London society and the glimmerings of technological achievements that would come to fruition during the Victorian era. The era is considered so glamorous that it has spawned its own genre of romance novels.
[Back] Escritoire: A writing desk with drawers, ranging in size from a portable model to a piece of furniture. Many would have a sloping front door that folded out to form the desktop. The word is French, derived from the medieval Latin scriptorium for “writing room.”
[Back] Feazed: This is the correct spelling. It means to unravel or untwist, as in a rope.
[Back] Intrusted my autograph: Seeking famous personages’ signatures was a popular hobby that bedeviled anyone mentioned in the press on a regular basis, taking up their time to prepare and mail replies that could be better spent elsewhere. When Rudyard Kipling suggested to 200 applicants that they send a donation to charity in return for a signature, Israel Zangwill wrote, “for weeks abuse rained in upon him, and ‘thief’ seems to have been the mildest rebuke he received. To be asked for an autograph was an honour (even with the stamps omitted).”
[Back] Cliveden robbery: A fictional case. Cliveden is a massive historic estate in Buckinghamshire that was owned at this time by the Astor family. It was converted to a hotel in 1984. Plate refers to the family’s dinner service, with the serving platters made of silver or other precious metals attractive to burglars.
[Back] Diogenes: The Greek philosopher (412 or 404-323 B.C.) who helped found Cynicism, which promoted a virtuous, simple life by rejecting conventional desires such as wealth, power, and sex. Diogenes also was noted for stunts such as carrying a lamp in the daytime and announcing he was searching for a honest man.
[Back] ‘Boss’ Tweed: William M. Tweed (1823-1878) headed the corrupt Democratic Party political machine known as Tammany Hall that dominated New York during the 19th century. He was convicted of stealing between $25 million and $45 million from New York City taxpayers—although historians dispute if he personally benefitted—and died in jail. His downfall was in part due to Thomas Nast (1840-1902), a German-born American editorial cartoonist who helped expose the Tweed Ring. His cartoons of Tweed were so iconic that when Tweed escaped to Spain, he was recaptured after he was identified from Nast’s cartoons.
[Back] President Harper: William Harper (1856-1906) helped John D. Rockefeller establish the University of Chicago and became its first president. An innovator in education, he established the first departments of Egyptology and sociology, offered extension classes to those who could not afford to attend regularly, and developed the community college system.
[Back] John D. Rockefeller: Rockefeller (1839-1937) was an industrialist who co-founded Standard Oil and built it into one of the nation’s biggest corporations. He became the first American to be worth more than a billion dollars and at his death was the richest person in U.S. history. After his retirement, he spent the last four decades of his life spending his fortune on philanthropic projects.
[Back] Marie Corelli: David Belasco (1853-1931) was an American theatrical producer, director and playwright who was an innovator of stage lighting and special effects. John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922) was an American humorist, lecturer, and editor, whose Associated Shades novels (including A House-Boat on the Styx (1895) and Pursuit of the House-Boat (1897) were being lampooned by Fogg. Marie Corelli (1855-1924) was one the most popular novelists of the era.
[Back] The Darling of the Gods: A play by David Belasco and John Luther Long, set in 1876 Japan when as part of the Meiji Restoration the emperor confiscated the weapons of the samurai class. It ran for two extended runs during 1902-04.
[Back] Fought the British: Washington had been attracted to many women before he married the wealthy widow Martha Custis in 1759, but the details and depth of those relationships remain a mystery. Although the couple had no children of their own, Martha brought two children into the marriage and Washington raised them as his own.
[Back] George Ade: Ade (1866-1944) was a Chicago newspaper columnist, humorist, and playwright.
[Back] Eternal feminine: The idea that women are defined by an essence that is uniquely theirs, usually tied into ideas of
feminine values vs. masculine values, fertility, the purity of the virgin and sanctity of the mother. Feminists such as Simone De Beauvoir would argue that these values are creations of a male-dominated society and that everyone has the right to define their own existences.
[Back] Latin proverb: A quotation from the Greek dramatist Menander (342/41-c.290 B.C.), who wrote more than a hundred comedies, of which few have survived. He displayed a particular skill—at least to the Greeks—proverbs, many of which related to women, including “A man is thrice unhappy trusting a woman” and “It is not possible to see loyalty in women.” His less-misogynistic phrases include “He who labors diligently need never despair, for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor” and “the die is cast.”
[Back] Capt. Kidd: Capt. William Kidd (1645-1701) was executed for piracy, even though historians believe he acted legally as a privateer. Some believe that his treasure was buried in the Delaware beach of Kitts Hummock. His fictional adventures were chronicled in Bangs’ Pursuit of the House-Boat.
[Back] A hell for women: From Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): “England is a paradise for women and hell for horses; Italy a paradise for horses, hell for women.”
[Back] Sorrows of Satan: This 1895 Marie Corelli novel introduces Satan in disguise as Lucio, a foreign aristocrat who advises starving writer Geoffrey Tempest how to spend his recently acquired inheritance. Although we’re meant to sympathize with Tempest’s fall and redemption, Corelli’s portrayal of Satan as a fallen angel who yearns for a salvation he’ll never receive was much more enticing to readers.
[Back] Paradise Lost: An epic poem by John Milton (1608-1674) about the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Although Milton wanted to make Paradise Lost a defence of God’s goodness, many readers tend to see Satan as the hero, or at least a tragic victim.
[Back] Four Million: The title of a story collection by O. Henry (1862-1910) that refers to the population of New York City where he set his stories.
[Back] Barmecide feast: A promise that proves illusionary. Inspired by a story in the Arabian Nights, in which a member of the wealthy and powerful Barmecide family serves a beggar an imaginary banquet. (To finish the story, the beggar played along with him to the point of hitting him while “drunk” on wine. The wealthy man praised him for playing along, ordered a real feast to be served, and made the beggar his assistant.)
[Back] King George the Fourth: King George IV (1762-1830) ruled Great Britain as Prince Regent for his insane father during the lavish Regency era, and for another decade as king after his father died.
[Back] Porter: John Paul Jones died of kidney failure in Paris at 45, and the location of his burial was forgotten during the upheavals of the French Revolution. In 1905, the U.S. ambassador to France, Gen. Horace Porter, found Jones’ remains after searching for six years and returned him to America, where he was reinterred with honors at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
[Back] Brimstone: Matches are made of brimstone, an alternative name for sulfur, and are nicknamed “lucifers.”
[Back] For the study of history: This footnote covers the historical personages and their stories mentioned in this paragraph.
Socrates (470/469-399 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher whose ideas form one of the major pillars of Western philosophy. Chronic kicker refers to a story in The Lives of Eminent Philosophers (225 A.D.) by Diogenes Laertius. When Socrates’ philosophical argument resulted in physical attacks on him, he “bore all this ill-usage patiently. So much so that, when he had been kicked, and someone expressed surprise at his taking it so quietly, Socrates rejoined, ‘Should I have taken the law of a donkey, supposing that he had kicked me?’”
Moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt and to the Promised Land. When they grew thirsty, God instructed him to strike a rock and He would make water flow from it. (Moses did this twice with serious consequences for himself, but that is outside the scope of this reference.)
Vesuvius is a volcano in Italy that blew in 79 A.D., burying Pompeii and Herculaneum. It was not commonly called the devil’s chimney.
Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea in Jesus’ time. When he bowed to the crowd’s demand that Jesus be crucified, he publicly washed his hands to show that he was not responsible for his death.
Shakespeare: After the king is murdered in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth in her growing madness tries to wash the blood from her hands, saying “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
Eve: The first woman, created by God from Adam’s rib and placed in the Garden of Eden.
Methuselah: The longest-living man in the Bible. He died at the age of 969, seven days before the flood that destroyed the world. Stories about the fountain of youth have existed since the 5th century B.C. It was supposed to be the goal of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon (1474-1521) during his expedition to Florida.
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in thy flight is from the poem “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother” (1859) by Elizabeth Chase Akers Allen (1832-1911). The line that follows is “Make me a child again, Just for to-night!”
[Back] Oslerized: Dr. William Osler (1849-1919) was a Canadian physician and co-founder of Johns Hopkins Hospital who suggested in a speech that “the effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty.” His humorous reference to Anthony Trollope’s The Fixed Period (1882), a dystopian fantasy in which the elderly were euthanized at 67, was taken seriously by the press, and “to be Oslerized” came to mean being forcibly retired.
[Back] James Payn: Payn (1830-1898) was an English novelist who held longtime stints editing Chamber’s Journal and Cornhill Magazine. Similar sentiments were expressed by Walter Scott (“muddling among old books has the quality of a sedative, and saves the tear and wear of an overwrought brain”) and William Macaulay (“an interesting book acted as an anodyne”).
[Back] Just begun to fight: As captain of the Bonhomme Richard in 1779, John Paul Jones sailed into battle against the British Serapis. According to legend, when the Serapis captain asked Jones if he would surrender, he replied, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
[Back] Without other cover: Packages mailed any way other than first class had to be openable for inspection by the postmaster. The notion of sending an unwrapped item might seem bizarre, but in 2000, the science-humor magazine Improbable Research successfully sent a number of items through the mail, including duct-taped-together tennis shoes, a molar in a clear box, a ski, and even a dead fish.
[Back] Barren Island soap: An island off the southeast shore of Brooklyn and the site of soap-processing plants and the city’s first landfill. After a cholera epidemic in the 1850s, city inspector Alfred W. White was given the authority to close the city’s rendering plants that were processing thousands of horse carcasses and other offal from the slaughterhouses (historians also believe population growth near the plants had inspired a “not in my backyard” campaign as the new residents objected to the smell). White saw “the greatest chance for a fortune I ever saw,” and with his partners secretly bought Barren Island. By 1897, the plant was processing more than 2 million tons of garbage a year and generating more than $10 million in annual revenue. Landfills have since connected the island to Brooklyn, and the land is now The Gateway National Recreation Area.
[Back] Stove blacking: Blacking was a polish used to improve the look of cast-iron boilers and stoves.
[Back] Dr. Lyon’s tooth powder: A popular brand of powder used before the development of toothpaste. Dr. Israel Whitney Lyon (1827-1907) brought out Dr. I.W. Lyon’s Tooth Tablets in 1866 and a powdered version in 1874. At one time, it was the most popular brand in the U.S., and still sold as late as the 1950s.
[Back] Antiphonies
: A responsive exchange of ideas or opinions.
[Back] Painted lady: A Victorian or Edwardian-era house painted with three or more colors. The term was first used to describe women who used heavy amounts of make-up to disguise their age.
[Back] R.S.V.P.S.P.C.A.: A nonsense conjunction of R.S.V.P. for the French répondez s’il vous plait, a request for a response found on invitations, and S.P.C.A. for Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
[Back] Patagonia: The southernmost region in South America, consisting of grasslands, steppes and deserts. The word resembles the romantic names of Middle European states in Ruritanian romances such as The Prisoner of Zenda.
[Back] Fives courts: Fives is a game in which a ball is propelled by the hand in a court consisting of two to four walls. There are several varieties, named for the schools where they originated: Rugby, Eton, Warminster, Winchester, Clifton, and St. John’s. The fives court at Groton still exists and is one of the few in the United States.
[Back] Campus: The Latin word for field became applied to school grounds through a Roman god. In ancient Rome, a district dedicated to the war god Mars was called the Campus Maritus. It was used for military training, to quarter troops, and other martial purposes. The phrase was used as early as the 1830s to refer to a field used to drill militia. By 1843, a newspaper story about President Tyler’s visit to Princeton reported that he was received on the “Front Campus.” Why Blair would consider the word vulgar in 1918 is a mystery. Most likely it is not meant to be taken seriously, but as a poke at what an education does to the pretensions of youth. In 1890, the Washington, D.C., Evening Star published an essay in which a college graduate seeking a berth as a reporter was quizzed about a story he wrote compared to how “Old Pinkney” would have written it: