Her Lost Diary: 1902

Diary entries, 1901, Nellie Smith https://www.livingarchive.org.uk/content/catalogue_item/nellie-smith-collection/diary-entries-by-nellie-smith-1901-1920-2

HER LOST DIARY.

The Plaguy Thing Had All Her Dearest Secrets Recorded Too.

“Diary!” fairly shrieked the pretty young lady, with flashing eyes, as she walked down the avenue with a com­panion. “Diary! Don’t you say diary to me, again. What do you know about it, Kate?”

“Nothing, only that you told me that you had commenced keeping a diary, as usual, and 1 supposed you had dropped it at the end of a month, as usual. I didn’t mean to throw you into hysterics.”

“Kate, don’t you ever breathe a word of it, but I’ve lost that diary; dropped it somewhere on the street. And the plaguy thing has all my dearest secrets in it, I wrote just what I thought too. It just sends me crazy. There it is in black and white that Lillian looks like a fright, that Hattie is turning green from jealousy, that Charley is just too sweet to live and that Fred hasn’t sense enough to talk more than three minutes unless he rehearses in advance.”

“Why don’t you advertise and offer a reward?”

“Indeed, I won’t. I never want to see the thing again. If any one returns it, I shall declare that it’s a forgery from beginning to end. I’ll never own up the longest day I live.”

“What did you say about me, Edith?”

“Oh. I don’t just remember, but some­thing nice. You can depend on that, for you’re my very dearest friend.”

“I can help your memory. You wrote that I was the most inquisitive little minx in the city and that I thought it my special business to look after other people’s business. Here’s your diary. You left it at our house, and Tommy spelled out your estimate of me before I knew what he was doing. Good after noon.”

Then they looked at each other, both began to cry, fell into each other’s arms and in five minutes were criticising a mutual friend.—Kansas City Independent

The Bismarck [ND] Tribune 1 May 1902: p. 3

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil reminds her readers of the old adage: “Two can keep a secret, if one is not a diary.”  This sound advice is seconded by solicitors who specialise in divorce cases; they recommend that you put nothing in writing that you would not like read out in a court of law.

 

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 anecdote

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.

The Indiscreet: 1884, 1897

Gossip, Sidney Smith https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/gossip-122830/view_as/grid/search/keyword:gossip/page/2

CAUGHT IN THE ACT.

Two Ladles Discover How They Had Made Themselves Disagreeable.

Two ladies were standing on the doorstep of a house in Georgetown, where but a moment before they had rung the bell and were waiting to be admitted. One was talking along very intently, when the taller woman interrupted her. “Be careful,” she said, “somebody may hear you.”

“I’m very particular,” responded the other. “I looked all around before I said anything and there was nobody in sight.”

“That’s what I thought once, too, and I made a serious mistake. I was calling once, just as we now are, and was with a woman who could and did say the meanest things about people I ever heard talk. I’m not given to that kind of thing usually, but I do love a bit of gossip, and sometimes I am led into saying things I shouldn’t. On this occasion the lady we were to call on was not a favorite of mine, and when the other woman said something sarcastic I chimed right in and said I thought she was the silliest and most extravagant and homeliest and dowdiest and stupidest woman of my entire acquaintance, and that I only called from a sense of duty anyhow. And a few other things, like that, I said.

“Well, we were let in after a long wait and the reception we got was the chilliest I ever met with. I couldn’t understand it, for we were really on very good terms, as those things go, and we got out as soon as we could. That night I told my husband about it when he came home, and he wondered at it too. Next evening he came in smiling, and told me that the next time I had anything to say about my neighbors on their own doorsteps I had better first see if there were any speaking tubes to tell on me. That explained it all in a second. A doctor used to live in that same house and he had a speaking tube at the door, as physicians do. The lady we were calling on had never changed it, and as I found out afterward, the main thing, she used to sit close to the other end of that tube and listen to what people might be saying at the door.

“She didn’t make much by listening to me, and she didn’t dare to tell me that she knew what I thought of her, and I didn’t care if she did know, only since that time I have been more careful. There’s a tube up there, see?” and the tall lady pointed to an innocent looking mouthpiece pouting out of the door frame. However, there was no response to their ring, and as they met the lady coming in just as they started away they felt perfectly safe and had a nice call. Washington Star.

The Scranton [PA] Republican 16 October 1897: p. 4

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  The conversational contretemps was a perpetually popular theme for the humourist. Indiscretion is always good for a laugh, particularly when it comes at someone else’s expense.

Two young ladies were once singing a duet in a concert-room. A stranger, who had heard better performances, turned to his neighbor, saying, “Does not that lady in white sing wretchedly?”

“Excuse me, sir. I scarcely feel myself at liberty to express my sentiments; she is my sister.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” answered he, in much confusion, “I mean the lady in blue.”

“You are perfectly right there,” replied the neighbor; “I have often told her so myself. She is my wife.”

The Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser [Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England] 14 July 1855: p. 3

A young man on a train was making fun of a young lady’s hat to an elderly gentleman in the seat with him. “Yes,” said the seatmate, “that’s my wife, and I told her if she wore that bonnet some fool would make fun of it.”

Pittsburg [TX] Gazette 7 October 1892: p. 1

It was also axiomatic that much malicious gossip went on between neighbours over the fence.

Over the Fence.

Mrs. Slingonin put her head over the fence and thus addressed her neighbor, who was hanging out her week’s washing;

“A family has moved in the empty house across the way, Mrs. Clothesline.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Did you notice their furniture?”

“Not particularly.”

“Two loads, and I wouldn’t give a dollar a load for it. Carpets! I wouldn’t put them down in my kitchen, And the children! I won’t allow mine to associate with them. And the mother! She looks as though she had never known a day’s happiness. The father drinks, I expect, Too bad that such people should come into this neighborhood. I wonder who they are.”

“I know them.”

“Do you? Well, l declare. Who are they?”

“The mother is my sister, and the father is superintendent of the Methodist Sunday school.”

A painful pause ensues.

The St Johnsbury [VT[ Index 29 May 1884: p. 3

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 anecdote

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.

 

A Terror on the Street Car: 1889

HE WAS A TERROR.

An Unruly Boy Who Run a Whole Car to Suit Himself.

About the middle of the car were a lady and a boy about live years of age, evidently mother and son, says the New York Sun. The train had scarcely moved out of the depot before the boy began to “cut up,” running up and down the aisle and making remarks to passengers. The mother called to him several times and finally said : “James, I certainly shall tell your father.”

“How can you when he’s run away and nobody knows where he is?’ replied the boy.

This settled the mother for a time, but when the boy sought to raise a window she leaned forward and said:

“James, I shall surely punish you.”

“If you do I’ll tell that a policeman arrested grandpa,” he retorted. She let him alone for another interval, but as he began to worry a bird in a cage, which one of the passengers was transporting, she sternly said :

“James, come here.”

“Not now.”

“Right off! You are a bad boy, and I shan’t let you come with me again.”

“Yes, you will.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Then I’ll tell that the reason papa ran away is because Mr. Davis came to our house so much.”

This prostrated the mother, and she began to read, and had nothing further to say, while the boy roamed up and down the car unchecked until he finally fell asleep on a vacant seat. He had one more shot in reserve, however. As he lay down he called out:

“Say, mamma, wake me up when we get to grandma’s. I want to hear her swear and take on because papa turned her out doors last summer!”

The Record-Union [Sacramento CA] 29 December 1889: p. 1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  As a well-known American entertainer once remarked, “Kids say the darndest things!”

One would observe with interest the future career of a child with such a capacity for blackmail. He would be spoilt for choice. He might become a master criminal, a ruthless captain of industry, or a politician.

Mrs Daffodil has written about the horrors of spoilt children in Enfants terribles of New York.

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.

The Song of the Hammer: 1903

“Gossips” Patchwork picture redrawn by Carmel Wilson c. 1938 https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/patchwork-picture-gossips/8QFUFJIsR64J3Q

The Song of the Hammer.

At the home of a dame devout,

Who in mission work always led,

The sewing society sat about,

Plying their needles and thread;

And in a melodious key,

Without hesitation or stammer,

Incessantly and relentlessly,

They sang the “Song of the Hammer “:

Knock, knock, knock,

With never a halt or pause;

Knock, knock, knock,

Without provocation or cause.

Characters white as snow

Are daubed with spots of black,

While these righteous, merciful sisters sew

To cover the heathen’s back.

 

Knock, knock, knock,

None whom they know is spared;

Knock, knock, knock,

How their neighbor’s faults are aired!

The absent members, too,

Come in for their share of abuse,

While these worthy dames, with much ado,

Sew shirts for the heathen’s use.

 

“Now, there’s that girl of Clark’s,

Her conduct is really a shame,

With her tomboy capers and larks,

I just know her mother’s to blame!

And, although her mother’s my friend,

I’m sure that the giddy young flirt

Is bound to come to some bad end

As sure as I’m hemming this shirt!

 

“And that giddy young Mrs. Wright,

I’m sure you’ll all agree

That her conduct was simply a fright

At Mrs. DeLong’s last tea;

I’d not be a bit surprised,

But would think it a matter of course

If some day I should be advised

That her husband had sued for divorce.”

 

Knock, knock, knock,

While the hours are dragging slow:

Knock, knock, knock,

Till they all get up to go.

Their work for the day is o’er,

Their duty done with zest,

And when each is at home alone once more,

She’ll trim up all the rest!

 

Oh men with sisters dear,

With wives and sweethearts glad!

Did you ever happen to hear

Them giving their friends the gad?

If not, sneak home some day

And list to the sewing club’s clamor,

As they sing that old, familiar lay

Entitled “The Song of the Hammer.”

The Cleveland [OH] Leader 21 December 1903: p. 10

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  To be Relentlessly Informative, this is, of course, a parody of Thomas Hood’s poem “The Song of the Shirt.”

Indiscreet gossip might have embarrassing consequences, as one finds in these two little anecdotes:

Over the Fence.

Mrs. Slingonin put her head over the fence and thus addressed her neighbor, who was hanging out her week’s washing; “A family has moved in the empty house across the way,

Mrs. Clothes line.” “Yes, I know.”

“Did you notice their furniture?”

“Not particularly.”

“Two loads, and I wouldn’t give a dollar a load for it. Carpets! I wouldn’t put them down in my kitchen, And the children! I won’t allow mine to associate with them. And the mother! She looks as though she had never known a day’s happiness. The father drinks, I expect, Too bad that such people should come into this neighborhood. I wonder who they are.”

“I know them.”

“Do you? Well, l declare. Who are they?”

“The mother is my sister, and the father is superintendent of the Methodist Sunday school.”

A painful pause ensues.

The St Johnsbury [VT[ Index 29 May 1884: p. 3

CAUGHT IN THE ACT.

Two Ladles Discover How They Had Made Themselves Disagreeable.

Two ladies were standing on the doorstep of a house in Georgetown, where but a moment before they had rung the bell and were waiting to be admitted. One was talking along very intently, when the taller woman interrupted her. “Be careful,” she said, “somebody may hear you.”

“I’m very particular,” responded the other. “I looked all around before I said anything and there was nobody in sight.”

“That’s what I thought once, too, and I made a serious mistake. I was calling once, just as we now are, and was with a woman who could and did say the meanest things about people I ever heard talk. I’m not given to that kind of thing usually, but I do love a bit of gossip, and sometimes I am led into saying things I shouldn’t. On this occasion the lady we were to call on was not a favorite of mine, and when the other woman said something sarcastic I chimed right in and said I thought she was the silliest and most extravagant and homeliest and dowdiest and stupidest woman of my entire acquaintance, and that I only called from a sense of duty anyhow. And a few other things, like that, I said.

“Well, we were let in after a long wait and the reception we got was the chilliest I ever met with. I couldn’t understand it, for we were really on very good terms, as those things go, and we got out as soon as we could. That night I told my husband about it when he came home, and he wondered at it too. Next evening he came in smiling, and told me that the next time I had anything to say about my neighbors on their own doorsteps I bad better first see if there were any speaking tubes to tell on me. That explained it all in a second. A doctor used to live in that same house and he had a speaking tube at the door, as physicians do. The lady we were calling on had never changed it, and as I found out afterward, the moan thing, she used to sit close to the other end of that tube and listen to what people might be saying at the door.

“She didn’t make much by listening to me, and she didn’t dare to tell me that she knew what I thought of her, and I didn’t care if she did know, only since that time I have been more careful. There’s a tube up there, see?” and the tall lady pointed to an innocent looking monthpiece pouting out of the door frame. However, there was no response to their ring, and as they met the lady coming in just as they started away they felt perfectly safe and had a nice call.

The Scranton [PA] Republican 16 October 1897: p. 4

To be fair, not removing the rubber tube was not quite playing the game, although Mrs Daffodil admits that she would not hesitate to deploy such a device to her advantage.

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.

The Very Worst Thing: Young Ladies and Their True Confessions: 1895

Confidences, Frank Bramley https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/confidences-148536/search/keyword:confidences-frank-bramley

 SOME DILEMMAS

But the Worst One was the Story of the Letters.

They were having a real nice time together, and they had told each other almost all of their private affairs when one of them remarked, as she deftly removed a marshmallow from a hatpin on which she had toasted it, “Look here, girls, I wish you would tell me the very worst thing that ever happened to you.”

“H’m,” replied the plump brunette, “that is easy enough in my own case. It happened the last time I went sleighing with Tom. You see, we quarreled desperately and”—

“Was that it?” slyly put in the tall blond.

“It was not. It was the discovery after I had refused to speak to him that I had lost my handkerchief. We had five miles yet to reach home, and I had a cold anyhow, so you may imagine my sufferings.”

“Mercy on us, that was nothing at all,” groaned the tall blond. “Don’t waste any sympathy on her, girls, but listen to me. I was just starting to dress the other day when Walter sent up a message that he had stopped on his way to the train and wouldn’t I see him for a moment right away? In my haste I got on May’s back hair instead of my own. It is nine shades darker, so you can imagine the effect. The parlor curtains were at the laundry, too, the sun was shining brutally in, and I discovered my mistake in the mantel mirror as I took my seat. Think of it! After he had written a poem, which was almost accepted by a magazine, to my ‘Riotous Golden Hair!’”

“Oh, oh!” groaned the first girl, “that was simply awful! As for me, you know I would perish before I would admire Dora’s sleeves. Well, one night I staid with her and died of envy at her new dark blue waist.”

“The one with sleeves like sublimated sofa pillows?” queried the plump brunette.

“The same. I had on my pink one, but it faded away like a sunrise before hers. I determined to have sleeves like those or fill an early grave, so in the morning I told her that I couldn’t possibly wear my pink waist home in daytime, and she actually loaned me her new one.”

“Even Dora has a good fit sometimes,” said the tall blond.

“M’hm. I went home as fast as I could, took off the waist which I had promised to send right back, and flew to the dressmaker’s with it. She promised to make my new sleeves juts like ‘em, and I was coming peacefully away when whom should I meet on the threshold but Dora herself!”

“Oh, Fan, how awful!”

“It was. Not as bad as it might have been, though, for she had my pink waist in her hand. She had come to have the garniture on it copied. Of course neither of us could say a word, but the one moment in which I knew that I was found out was the most awful of my life. I woke up at night bathed in cold perspiration at the thought of it.”

‘And no wonder,” said the other girls in chorus. “Do have some more marshmallows, dear.”

The melancholy girl with the brown hair heaved a sepulchral sigh: “I am glad to know that other people have woes too. I have mine. George and I quarreled desperately yesterday because he actually said I was flirting with Jim.”

“And were you?” queried the blond.

“Of course not. I denied it indignantly and gave back his ring on the spot. When he was gone, I bundled up his letters, called a messenger and sent them off before I drew breath. Today I discovered that I had by mistake inclosed a lot of Jim’s with them, and now I’m wondering how I’m ever going to explain them away.”

And for a moment there was an awed silence in the room.

Ukiah [CA] Daily Journal 3 May 1895: p. 5

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: How, indeed?  Mrs Daffodil, who has seen and abetted a good deal of blackmail in her time in service, always advises burning compromising letters and beating the ashes to powder with a poker. Such trifling precautions may save the recipient from being beaten to a powder by a disgruntled lover with a blunt instrument.

Still, stories about ladies who experience difficulties when entertaining two consecutive gentlemen are so commonplace as to be scarcely worth our sympathy. It is the unprincipled ladies who rush off to their dressmakers to copy a sleeve or a garniture of a rival who truly shock Mrs Daffodil.

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.