A Valentine Prospectus: 1871

Sweeping up on the Stock Exchange floor.

We transcribe, as a tail-piece, a singular valentine, in the shape of a prospectus of a public company in full working order, which was actually received last year by a worthy knight and gallant soldier, who, now a veteran, has left his blood in nearly every quarter of the habitable and inhabitable globe. The puzzles that occur in the list of “Corresponding Agents” are, it may be said with reverence, about as clumsy as they are transparent:—

 

 

The Dublin University Magazine, Volume 77, 1871

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  While the ideal marriage in England was a love-match, fully sanctioned by the proud, pragmatical parents, most upper-class marriages contained sordid elements of business in the form of marriage settlements and might well be framed on the order of a corporate merger. (Mrs Daffodil recalls vividly the mercenary negotiations in the case of Consuelo Vanderbilt and the 9th Duke of Marlborough.) One is shocked to find the bride-to-be in this passage referred to a “pecuniary liability.”

A lady who has a fortune at her own disposal sometimes sets all such prudential measures as settlements at defiance, and consigns herself and her belongings to the absolute disposal of her future husband. Believing, in the ardour of her affection, that no change from time or circumstances can ever alter the conduct of her devoted admirer towards herself, she resents every attempt on the part of friends to convince her of the necessity of any kind of self-protection. She is apt to infer that acts of prudence are simply acts of suspicion, and will not consent to any accordingly. That the latter course is sheer folly may be proved by every one not hopelessly under the influence of love-blindness. Far from misconstruing just measures, a really disinterested man is anxious that his bride-elect should receive every protection her guardians may judge necessary to her future welfare; at the same time it is only reasonable that the conditions imposed on himself should not be of too stringent a nature. Every man that marries undertakes a pecuniary liability, in the form of a wife, and should not be stripped of the means of meeting that liability. The higher in the social scale of society that observation is made, the more closely are honourable dealings apparent in the matter of marriage settlements.

Cassell’s Household Guide, 1869: p. 117

Mrs Daffodil notes that the address of the adored object is a German one. One supposes that the ponderous Teutonic humour amused the recipient.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.