Spotted in Bath this week: a teacup carnival ride, three fire eaters, one knife juggler, one cute little girl in Waitrose with a pink rain coat and complete pig face paint, and one man playing the fiddle whilst on a tight rope. There is so much going on here on a daily basis, and I always forget to bring my camera! Alas, such is life. Saturday was a very relaxing day; we walked through the shopping streets behind our house (I found a beautiful dress or two I may have to invest in), and then we went to Jacob's Coffeehouse (my new favorite place) for a little snack. And then we went back the next day to do work. A few things about this coffee shop: 1) it is basically River Road with two levels and bright yellow walls, 2) it is right outside of the Abbey, 3) they have the GREATEST butternut squash and red pepper soup, and 4) there are street performers who have shows right outside the upstairs windows. This is where we saw the man on the unicycle and the knife juggler. There was even a man who took off his shirt unnecessarily, in order to get his handcuffs off (we unfortunately saw his show twice). Now, while this is awesome, I challenge you to get homework done while there is a man legitimately throwing fire on a ten foot tall unicycle right in front of you. It is quite distracting. Nevertheless, I'm in love, and will make it my Sunday work spot. Plus, one of the waiters has one of the best accents I've heard so far.
Then I came home and stayed up until five writing Sophia White and the Seven Good Guys in the Woods. It will be posted at the bottom of this post, for those of you who want a bedtime story. It is, as always, a rough draft.
But we all know what today is--Jane Austen Monday! Here are some more interesting things to know about Jane Austen's time period, namely why it was so important to chose an honorable husband.
1. The legal age was 21. Legal in the sense of inheritance, and financial control.
2. It was far better, in financial terms, for women to be widows. A widowed woman was known as a "femme sole" and was given complete control of her husbands estate, or at least it was split evenly between her and her children. This, of course, is all assuming that is how the husband detailed it in his will. It was not illegal, however, for women to hold property.
3. A married women was a "femme couverte" and basically had no control over any of her own finances. Any money made by a married woman could be taken by her husband and all financial decisions were up to him. Married women basically did not exist financially. In fact, everything could be willed away from the wife, including her own children.
4. It was legal for me to beat their wives, as long as it was with something no wider than a thumb (hence, the "rule of thumb").
5. There were two types of divorce, though they were both acts of parliament and were difficult and very rarely initiated by women. There was the normal kind with moving out, and then there was "emensa et thoro" which was a divorce from the table and the bed. Which meant the husband didn't feed his wife, but the wife didn't have to sleep with her husband. Or the other way round.
6. A husband could divorce his wife if she was being unfaithful, or if he only thought she was being unfaithful (and sue the other man to boot--ps what is the male equivalent of a mistress?). A wife could not divorce her husband unless he was A) cheating AND B) doing some other completely awful thing, like beating her within an inch of her life, or stealing all her money and spending it on drugs.
7. If a woman did get a divorce, however, she could not enter into society every again, and neither could her children. Meaning her children would have no chance of a respectable marriage.
8. However, married women did have some money, so long as their father or brother "settled" money on them. Meaning that the money settled was never touched by the husband, but passed straight to the women. Mrs. Bennet's fortune, for example, was settled on her daughters, Mr. Bennet could not have touched it if he wanted to.
9. This is why Wickham's attempted elopement was so awful: because Georgiana's money is not settled, it would have all gone into Wickham's control and she would have become a "femme couverte."
10. An entail (the Bennet's house was entailed to their cousin, Mr. Collins), meant that some older dead relative had outlined the ownership of the house. For example, Mr. Bennet Sr. entailed Longbourn in the male line. It passed first to Mr. Bennet (though as he was not the last owner could not change anything major, like have the house torn down), and then to Mr. Collins, and it very well could have been decided for another generation as well. But, entails are very specific as to who gets the house, and once the person who has written it has died, it cannot be undone. (In Sense and Sensibility, Norland is entailed by the old man Dashwood to the young son of John and Fanny Ferrars. But it is passed down through the male line, so Mr. Henry Dashwood (Elinor and Marianne's father), owned it until he died, after which ownership went to John Dashwood, his son by his first wife. So, this effectively cut the women out of the fortune.
There you have it. You have now sat through my class. The rest of today was spent talking to friends on Skype, making travel plans, and going to the grocery store, for the bagillionth time. All my money will be spent on food and travel, I think. Then, as it was a Monday night, we had knitting club. I still don't knit. But it was very interesting, as we (get ready for this, I was in heaven) played the sentence game. As in we told a story, sentence by sentence. This story, it turned out, was about six biscuits (which are like cookies) named Tom, Britney, Spears, Freidrick, Christopher, and Joe. And one of them had to be eaten. So they got some eggs, and some flour, but then Britney realized she had no arms! But it was okay, because Freidrick and Christopher and Tom weren't really biscuits, they were gingerbread men. So they continued to make the new biscuits, so they could be eaten instead. But then an egg rolled over Tom and he fell to the floor. So Britney rolled after him and gave him CPR (he died anyways). They finished the cookies in the oven, and but it turned out they were dog treats! Which was lucky, because a dog had come in and wanted to eat them. So the dog ate most of the treats, leaving only one. The human then came in, and stepped on Britney, who perished. It was crumby. Spears couldn't take it, and gave herself up for the human to eat. He ate her first, then reached for another. Luckily, he was farsighted, and accidentally grabbed the dog treat. So he had to run out of the room because it was so gross. So then the biscuits that were left rolled onto some sponges (so they didn't crack) and rolled into the bathroom to pick up some toothpaste and floss and toilet paper (just the necessities), and then they rolled down the stairs. Half way down, they met a Bakewell Cake (I don't know, it's British, look it up) with one bite taken out of it from a war long past. They rejoiced and he joined their group, and they planned to roll out of the house through the dog flap and to the safety of the bushes. Only before they made it to the bushes, they did a little dance. The End.
And then, one of the girls who is a creative writing major as well told us the best flash fiction piece ever written. It was by Edgar Allen Poe and it goes like this: For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.
We also talked about so many differences between American and British culture (although we also talked about Saved by the Bell and Recess, so there are also a lot of similarities). But I thought it was really interesting that most of them could not tell the difference between a state and a city. They asked if Chicago was a state, and one girl said that she had "been to Cape Cod, you know, in Boston." Fun.
A bunch of people in the knitting club this time were making these little hearts out of yarn (obviously). One of the girls kept calling it a "love heart," which I thought was really cute. So,
I (love heart) you all.
-L Pro
Sophia White and The Seven Good Guys in the Woods
I am one of the seven Dwarves, but my name isn’t Dopey or Happy or Smiley or any other crazy name I seem to hear around the campfire. No, I am Maximilian Dwarf III, and my brothers and I know the true story of the wonderful woman the world knows as Snow White. We, of course, knew her by her real name, before her stepmother started calling her Dirty Snowball. Let me tell you, Snow White’s mother did not want a child with skin as white as snow, or lips as red as cherries, or hair as black as ebony (what a scary child that would be). Her mother the Queen only wanted a healthy child, a happy child. Her wish was granted, but the Queen died that night, giving all her love and beauty and strength to her new baby girl. She was born Sophia Angelique Maribella White, and was a very beautiful little princess with brown hair and brown eyes.
I know all this, you understand, from talking to Sophia myself, many years ago. She was always a brilliant storyteller herself, but far too modest to tell this tale. She’s even too nice to admit that she didn’t like the name Snow White so much when she grew older.
“How would you like to be called ‘Plum Purple’ or ‘Grass Green,’ or ‘Orange Orange?’” she’d say. Of course, then she’d laugh, and forget all about it in her good spirits. She didn’t always hate her pet name, but nicknames grow old, just like children grow up.
To my knowledge, she was Snow White almost as soon as she could walk. After her mother died, summer died too. The sky was gray, the flowers drooped, even the birds didn’t seem as lively as they once were. And that year the seasons skipped fall and went straight for winter. It snowed like we’d never seen it snow before. I didn’t see anyone but my brothers for weeks at a time, because we couldn’t get out our front door. (Let me tell you, those were some smelly times.) But I’m told that our little Sophia was outside everyday, making snow angels before she could crawl, and befriending snowmen before she could talk. So, Sophia White turned to Snow-phia, and eventually, the townspeople just knew her as Snow White. It had stuck before she was three.
But growing up without a mother is difficult, especially for the father. Mostly Sophia loved it; her father didn’t make her take baths nearly as often as she probably should have, and a lot of her time was spent finding different ways out of the castle (many of which led through the gutters, mind you). She never had a care in the world, but her father knew she needed a mother. So, when she was about ten, her father married the most loathsome, vain, horrible, but beautiful woman he found. Of course, I’m fairly certain he didn’t know about the loathsome and horrible parts before he married her.
She was such a thing to behold—I myself was enchanted by her eyes, her face, her hands… But nevermind that! Every part of her was evil, we must remember, though we didn’t know it at the time. The entire kingdom was simply happy to have a woman on the throne again. People would come from miles around just to look at her. She had brilliantly gold hair, and from what I’ve learned from those closest to her, it had magical properties. Her hair shone so brilliantly that every person who looked at it could see his or her own reflection. Only their reflections were distorted slightly, so that they knew it was she who was the fairest of them all.
But she had her own way to look at herself. She had a mirror that hung in her study, the only room she kept locked, to whom she asked, “Mirror Mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” (It wouldn’t answer unless she asked it in rhyme, you see.)
“Dear Queen,” it would say, “With eyes like starlight and hair like gold, you’re the most beautiful of the young and old.” And then I’d assume she’d nod in agreement and say, “Why, yes I am.” I won’t lie to you, she was the most beautiful woman in the land; the mirror told the truth. But this mirror, when it came down to it, was not that special. It only saw what was on the outside, on the very surface of a person.
Sophia’s father gave Sophia a much more impressive magical mirror when he remarried. This mirror saw through the soul of anyone who looked into it, and knew how beautiful a person truly was, inside and out. Sophia loved that mirror. Who wouldn’t? It told her she was the most beautiful girl in all the land, although she didn’t need to look into it everyday.
Life was still pretty good for Sophia, as she had her friend Harold, the manservant, who loved to play with her whenever he could. So she still had fun, even though her new mother made her sit still at the dinner table with her elbows off the table, and she wasn’t allowed to go running around the grounds as much. The new Queen would criticize everything about Sophia, telling her, “How on earth could you get this dirty, you muddy Snowball? Wash off at once!” Or, “If I made a snowman, it certainly wouldn’t have six buttons, that’s just horrid,” or even, “I wouldn’t eat that cookie if I were you, you don’t want to turn into a snow globe!” She would even take away some of Sophia’s finer jewelry, saying that Sophia didn’t know how to take care of it properly, so she didn’t deserve it. Really though, she just kept the diamonds and rubies for herself. So Sophia got into the habit of avoiding her whenever she could.
Things might have gone very differently for our little Sophia had the Queen not spotted the magical mirror hanging in her room. She tiptoed in, envying her stepdaughter’s beautiful jewelry and furniture, no doubt, when Sophia was asleep one night. Only Sophia wasn’t really sleeping.
“Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” She whispered, her nose up and a smug smile on her face.
“You, dear Queen, might be pretty enough for a ball, but our lovely Sophia is more beautiful than all.” Came the mirror’s reply. The Queen’s smile dropped immediately and she spun around to look at her stepdaughter, who was pretending to be asleep.
“How dare she…” The Queen muttered, before storming out the door, too angry to remember to tiptoe. “I’ll show her,” she said. The next day, the Queen took Sophia and locked her in the tallest tower. “If no one in the world can see you, then I’m still the fairest in the kingdom. And don’t you dare show your face in this house again!” She said, as the lock clicked and she stomped down the stairs.
Sophia was frightened, as any eleven year old would be. There was no secret passageway from this part of the castle, and she was too high up for anyone to hear her scream. She sat down in the middle of the bare, circular room, and cried for twenty whole minutes, before she fell asleep. The next time she woke up, it was to her dear friend Harold the manservant, shaking her gently and giving her a hot cup of hot chocolate.
“Harold!” She said, and flung her arms around his neck before taking the cup. “I knew you’d come.” He kissed her on the forehead.
“Listen, child, you must run. The Queen has convinced your father to keep you up here until your sixteenth birthday, so you will be safe from the outside world.”
“That’s ridiculous!” She said, and he shushed her. “But she’s who I need to be safe from! She’s crazy!”
Harold nodded. “I know, child, I know. She has your father under some sort of spell.” He checked behind him, to make sure no one was coming. “Listen, Snow, I know of some good guys in the woods who could take care of you for a while,” see, he’s talking about my brothers and I now. “You wouldn’t live like a princess, but you’d be free and safe. She couldn’t find you, I hope.” Sophia quickly agreed—she had always loved running away from the castle, and even though she knew the danger she was in, she was excited for the adventure.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said in her most grown up voice. Harold smiled and gave her a bundle of clothes and dried foods that she could eat on her journey, although it should only take her a day, he said. They snuck down the tower together, and she slipped off to one of her many secret passageways to the outside world.
Now this is my favorite part of the story, you see, because this is where my brothers and I come in. Harold had sent a message with Pidgy, our carrier pigeon, that she was coming, so we were very prepared and proud to have such a beautiful princess in our care. My brothers, Theodore, Christopher, Broderick and Frederick the twins, Zacharias, myself and Ed all worked for two days straight making a bed big enough for a growing girl. I’d like to say that we were all prepared, but when she showed up on our doorstep, I’ll admit it, to you, not to her, that I nearly fainted. We had a princess living with us, for goodness sake! What were seven dwarves to know of princesses?
She knocked on our door late that night, and all seven of us jumped. I went to the door, as I’m the oldest.
“Hi!” She said, before I could get a word out. “Thanks for letting me stay with you. Your house is so small! I mean, in a cute way, not a bad way. Oh, now I’ve said too much. I hope you don’t think I’m rude, my stepmother thinks I’m rude. What’s your name again?” She said this all very fast and told me later it was because she was very, very nervous. She had never had any friends outside of the castle.
“Well,” I said, trying to figure what she’d said, “I’m Maximilian. We’re really happy to meet you.” And then I introduced her to my brothers and showed her where to sleep. And then, before she went to bed (this is my very favorite part of the story), she kissed me on my head and said “Thank you so much.” But she was tired, and fell asleep almost at once.
My brothers and I stayed up late into the night, talking of how best to protect her from the Queen’s jealousy. We knew it wouldn’t be long until the Queen realized she had escaped. We just hoped she’d think the Sophia died in the forest, although we lamented for the poor king. We decided that she should stay close by, and one of us should stay home at all times, just in case.
And so the next few weeks passed very happily, in my opinion. Sophia was very talkative and loved to hear of the adventures of my brothers: how Broderick and Frederick, the two soldiers, had defeated a dragon fifty years ago and each kept a poisonous dragon claw in their cupboards; how Theodore, the dentist, had pulled a tooth from a unicorn with a toothache, and now had extraordinary good luck; how Ed was the hairdresser for a very rich leprechaun, and so on. I, of course, am Dr. Maximilian of the forest, and once fixed two of king spider’s legs, as he’d had a terrible accident, and now we never have any sort of spider lurking in the dark corners of our cottage.
Sophia learned how to farm, how to tell which herbs were good to eat and which would give you pocks, how to whistle to birds for help, and how to listen to the trees. It was a great time, but we all knew it couldn’t last. After she had been with us three weeks, we heard from Harold and Pidgy that Harold had been banished, for the Queen had discovered he’d helped Sophia escape. Harold said that the Queen had finally looked into Sophia’s mirror once more. It had told her again that Sophia was fairest one of all, so the Queen began to think that her own mirror was lying to her. She smashed her own mirror one night (good riddance, I say), and was set on convincing the mirror in Sophia’s room that she was the fairest of them all. But it was to no avail.
In a fury, she ran up to the tallest tower, with Harold chasing after her, and wrenched open the door. Harold was sure that the Queen would have killed Sophia, had she been up there. As it was, she nearly bashed Harold’s head against the wall, and was only stopped by some other servants who came running to see what the commotion was. So he had been banished, and was now on the run.
“Oh, poor Harold!” Sophia had cried, and walked in circles all day, wishing there was something she could do. We, of course, let the word out in the woods, and made sure he was protected as best we could. The spiders promised to stay away, and the leprechauns agreed to watch out for dragons.
After that, we became much more cautious. Sophia stayed in the house, and we made sure one of us was with her at all times. That is until one day, when Christopher, who was the scribe for a very wise and powerful owl, fell asleep when he was supposed to be watching our dear Sophia. I don’t blame him, of course, not much. Sophia was outside, tending to the garden, when she saw a little girl. The Queen must have been planning and plotting and preparing for days, because she showed up looking like a little crying child all alone in the woods. (To this day I have no idea how she found us.)
“What’s wrong?” Sophia asked, running to the evil Queen child.
“I’m lost, and I can’t find my mommy!” The child cried, rubbing its eyes, though no tears were coming out.
“Oh, come inside, I’ll get you some milk.” Sophia opened the door and let her in, right past the sleeping Christopher. She led the little girl to our comfiest armchair and sat her down. The second she turned her back, the child stood up, only she was no longer a child, she was the Queen, and cut off all of Sophia’s beautiful brown hair.
“Ha!” She cried, waking Christopher up. “Now I am definitely the most beautiful in all the land!” And she ran out the door before Christopher could catch her. Sophia cried for a little bit over the little clumps of hair she still had left, but cheered up once she remember that it was only hair, and it would grow back. Ed was even able to fix it up a bit, and give her a cute cropped look, which we all agreed suited her fine.
That night, we all sat down and vowed to each other not to fall asleep on the job again, and told Sophia to be more careful. Although her new haircut was growing on us, there was no telling what the Queen would do next. So we fell back into the routine, and made sure that Christopher was never too tired to watch over her.
It wasn’t long before the Queen tried again—undoubtedly the mirror had told her once more that she wasn’t the most beautiful in the kingdom. This time, she was far cleverer. One night, while we were all asleep, she snuck into our house and replaced Sophia’s soap with a special soap of her own. I know this only because that morning, after Sophia washed her face and hands, angry red pimples and pockmarks showed up all over her body. This time she cried in earnest, and we were much more worried, for they looked painful!
I stayed home that day to tend to her, and I used all my creams and ointments to soothe her poor, itchy, red skin. It took two full weeks, but the pocks died down and she was once again her lively, happy, self, albeit with a few freckles. Even through all that time, however, the mirror never once told the Queen she was more beautiful than Sophia. She went mad with jealousy, and stormed about the castle insisting everyone call her “Your Radiance,” and if anyone spoke to her without telling her of her immense beauty, they were banished. People were starting to realize that she wasn’t as beautiful as they’d thought, now that she spent more time ranting than sitting on her throne, waiting to be admired.
Luckily, winter came before she had a chance to try again. The snow fell so hard that year that we knew she wouldn’t be able to try anything else, if only because she wouldn’t be able to leave her own castle. We were right, and spent a very peaceful winter drinking hot chocolate and going sledding and making snow angels.
When spring came, we were far more nervous, because we had heard rumors of the Queen’s madness. How her hair no longer shone, but her eyes flashed like a dying star every time she looked upon another woman. How she had banned the word “snow” from vocabulary, and was insisting people call it “frozen rain.” Even the king, it seemed, though he was coming out of her spell little by little, could do nothing, as all of his guards were under her spell as well. We waited and waited for her next evil trick.
But spring passed. With every day we grew more and more anxious. Eventually, I told Broderick and Frederick that they were to stay home and guard the house. It didn’t matter though. The Queen had snuck into our garden late one night, I couldn’t tell you when, and planted a poisonous apple tree. Sophia was excited as she could be when she saw the ripe red fruit dangling from its branches, early one morning. She grabbed an apple and bit into it without a second thought. By the third bite, though, she knew something was wrong.
“Theodore! Teodore! Teodoe!” She screamed, running into the house. I ran for Theodore, because I could see right away what the problem was: her teeth were rotting right out of her mouth. We sent Frederick to chop down the tree, while Theodore put some ointment on all her teeth that made them stop rotting.
“Your teeth will grow back,” Theodore told her, “but probably not for a while.” Sophia touched her mouth, then put her face in her hands.
I’m usually not a hugger, you see, because people are much taller and bigger than I am, but I gave her the biggest hug I could right then, and stroked her back.
“You know what this means, though, don’t you?” Said Zacharias, who had once joked his way out of being eaten by giants.
“What?” Sophia sniffled.
“You get to eat all the ice cream you want!” He smiled and patted her knee—he’s the shortest of the brothers. She cheered up at that, but before the night was over she had been so shaky that she couldn’t take it any more.
“That’s it!” she said, whistling every time she said an ‘s.’ “I can’t take this waiting anymore! I’m going to go and make my father get rid of her. I want to go home.” The whole table was silent. Everyone looked at me.
“Alright,” I said, after a pause, “but only if Frederick and Broderick and I go with you.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said. She was looking more and more grown up with each passing day. She had gotten so much taller since she first came. If I had been inclined to cry, I would have then, out of sadness and pride for our little princess.
The next morning we set off, and had a fairly easy journey. We didn’t talk much, as each of us was wondering how on earth we were going to break the king out of the Queen’s spell, and make him see sense. We didn’t know, of course, that the king had already started to realize his Queen was controlling him, his household, and the entire country.
I had sent Pidgy ahead, so Harold was waiting for us at the entrance to the city.
“Listen,” he said, after hugging Sophia, “the Queen is off her rocker. She doesn’t sleep anymore, she’s constantly staring at her own reflection, and she refuses to see anyone. The king can’t do anything because his guards are more loyal to her, at the moment. We need to run her out of town, because her presence is stopping the king from seeing clearly.” We all nodded, and began the nerve-wracking trek up to the castle. Although it wasn’t that late, nobody was out. All the doors were shut and no lights shone in the windows.
“Her madness must be spreading,” I said, as I saw a young girl run around a corner in terror, hiding her face.
We reached the doors without being stopped, but realized that Sophia was no longer with us. Never have I ever been more afraid than I was at that moment, but I now know what really happened from Sophia, so I won’t tell you all of my horrible worrisome thoughts.
She had run off to one of her passageways that led straight to her room, for she knew that’s where the Queen would be. It was only a matter of minutes before we heard the confrontation from down on the street, as we tried to pick the lock on the front door.
Sophia had crept into her own room, where the Queen was staring at her own reflection, asking again and again, “Mirror mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” But the mirror always gave the same response:
“You, dear Queen, might be pretty enough for a ball, but our lovely Sophia is more beautiful than all.”
“Stop asking it that, it won’t change!” Sophia said loudly, after hearing the same response three times. The Queen whirled around.
“You!” She screamed, and stormed towards her, looking more like a zombie than a Queen. Her face was white as snow, for she hadn’t seen sunlight in months, her lips were red from speaking the same phrase over and over, and her blond hair had lost all its luster, and reflected only the black of the darkness around them.
Sophia almost turned and ran, but instead, she bared her horrible teeth like a cat, and the Queen stopped out of shock.
“Maybe if you didn’t do this to me, or if you didn’t go around demanding everyone tell you you’re beautiful, or if you didn’t sit on your throne pretending you’re better than all your subjects, maybe then you’d be beautiful.” The Queen stared at her, wide eyed. “You’ve never tried to change your insides, you’ve only changed your outsides. And my outsides.”
“How dare you, you insolent little Snowball,” and she lifted her hand to smack Sophia across the cheek, but at that moment, the door flew open and I and the King and Harold and Frederick and Broderick all ran into the room.
“Don’t even think about laying a hand on my daughter,” said the King, and Frederick and Broderick ran forward and tackled the Queen to the ground.
“Daddy!” Sophia cried, and leaped into her father’s arms. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said, a little choked up.
“I’m glad you’re back, my brave little Sophia White.” And he hugged her tighter and longer than any father has ever done before.
Now, as for the Queen, she was thrown in jail for high treason to the King. She was kept in a cell with no mirrors, and I’m told that, by the time she was released, she had lost most of her vanity (though she always prided herself on her shiny hair).
The entire kingdom rejoiced Sophia’s return, and even the skies pitched in by having a warm summer snow. And even though she didn’t always like being called Snow White, she was glad to be back.
Oh, and don’t you worry, Harold and my six brothers and myself were all made into knights, and sat at the Queen’s table for many years, until we grew too old for city life. We are very happy now to sit in our cottage and tell the tales of our exciting lives, and the wonderful story of Sophia Angelique Maribella White.
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