NAMDRAL, Day 11

In Nicholas NIckleby Dickens gives many of his characters a trait that identifies them to the reader as they loop back in and out of the action. Mr. Mantalini enters the room saying "Demnition!" (and perhaps threatening to do away with himself), Lord Frederick Verisopht always finds a reason to invoke the devil, rendered "deyvle," and Mrs. Nickleby gets bogged down in the irrelevant details of her tangential and muddled stories.

In the section I read tonight, Mrs. Nickleby talks about her mother's run-in with a hairdresser who was escaping from a bear. Or was it a bear escaping from a hairdresser? 

I read this and thought, "Ah, yes, Mrs. Nickleby is being quirkier than usual." But then I checked the endnote.

Apparently, there was a late 18th-century English hairdresser named Gillingwater, who kept bears in the basement of his shop because bear grease was a popular hair tonic. Periodically he would post a sign out front saying that a bear had just been killed, so everyone would know that the bear grease was nice and fresh.

I suppose if a person keeps bears in the basement, it is entirely plausible that one's neighbors might have the occasional run-in with a proprietor being chased by a bear -- or a bear being chased by a proprietor.

Who knew the England of yore was such an exciting place to live?

Comments

[Tracy]

They did seem to have bears in the 1800s. I, perhaps being more away of the danger, think this is definitely not a prudent choice.

Every year you mention Dickenson and it reminds me to read Bleak House again (as in the book I said I would Read, and I am stubborn enough to keep trying. I am almost done with 10 chapters... so less than 1/6 of the book. I actually got caught up in a description, so maybe there is hope...

[Jamie]

Go Tracy! That's awfully persistent of you.

[Tracy]

I am loving the autocorrects in my prior comment. Aware, not away. and really autocorrect? how can it change Dickens to Dickenson???

I am a very stubborn person.