I agree that it’s disturbing. How could a woman, given every opportunity to fulfill her natural and fitting role as housekeeper and homemaker, possibly be unhappy? It would be like a fish not liking to swim! Unheard of.
Book III begins with a section on “The Housekeeper”, then a brief four paragraphs on the “Model Housewife”, and then gets around to explaining the secret of happiness. Again, to conserve space and to remove the less interesting bits, I give this information to the world in abbreviated form:
Visiting and resting? One wishes the fairer sex were more industrious. Perhaps they should all read the following:
But as strange as it may seem, not every woman is happy repapering the pantry shelves every Wednesday, and this unhappiness may lead her to slip from her proper role as detailed above. And therefore, at long last, I present to you all the secret of happiness. (To anyone who has previously searched for the secret of happiness, and failed to find it, I have but two words: “estate sales”.)
The secret of happiness is not something one should be stingy with. Nevertheless, this post is already getting long and I need to check my beef heart to see if it’s boiling yet, so you’re getting an abbreviated version.
And to everyone’s shock and amazement (well, mine at least), these are actually pretty damned good guidelines. The bit about simplification seems like it could have been pulled from Thoreau. (Although if everyone got rid of their useless little tables, they wouldn’t have much to sell at their estate sales.) I think most would agree that trying to keep up with the Joneses just leads to unhappiness (unless you’re one of the Joneses and like the attention). The egalitarian take on childhood training threw my cynical self for a loop, and I think it’s very true that we often slavishly obey our own arbitrary rules. Good books and good music? Hard to go wrong. And avoiding hypochondria is even more relevant in today’s world, where you can convince yourself that you’re deathly ill just by reading too many Wikipedia entries on skin diseases.
Wait, it seems I missed the last secret to happiness:
I cannot ascertain who Bridget is, or what she did wrong. But it’s not something you should worry your pretty little heads about, and keep your complaints to yourself. There’s a fence-full of happy work to keep your mind off of it.
From the book that brought you the top-grossing, “Lemon for felon … 105”, the recently released, “Happy, how to manage to be … 329”, and the just announced “Oranges, how to eat … 355”, comes the long-awaited, “String, how to break … 373”.
You may have noticed two apparent “typos” in the above posts. I refer specifically to: “Their is nothing unmanly” and “left hand over he string”. I do know the proper use of “their” and “there”; apparently, if the Cyclopedia had an editor, he did not. Also, I was not making any subtle Freudian or feminist commentary by giving the string a gender. (Although if you read it that way, it’s twice as amusing.) That’s simply how it is in the book, as you can confirm by viewing the linked image.
Thank you so much for the instruction on how to manage to be happy and just in time for the long weekend. I’m off now to build my fence of trust before I exhaust my nervous force.
Best Regards,
Soon to be not quite so Surly Chick
(I’m still confused about the string breaking. I don’t understand where the loop came from…)
No need to go all the way to the index. The table of contents is closer:
Broken bones are pretty serious. That’s probably why this section takes up almost an entire page - just slightly less than the sections for “Foreign Bodies in Ear, Nose and Throat” and “Other Remedies for Poisoning.”
Of course, if you don’t have a handkerchief handy you can just use one of your strings.
Oh no. Oh no no no. Opiates are bad! Apparently not as bad as smoking or drinking, judging by the lack of woodcuts depicting diseased organs, but bad nonetheless.
The index lists “Opiates and Nervousness … 156” (coincidentally, just above “Oranges, how to eat … 355”).
Let me add here that “hyoscyamus” (also known as henbane), is, to the best of my Google-age, a poison that was once used as a treatment. From Wikipedia: “Common effects of henbane ingestion in humans include hallucinations, dilated pupils, restlessness, and flushed skin.” Sounds like something an opium user could appreciate.
Just above “Opiates Increase Nervousness” are a few paragraphs about simply “Nervousness”. The Cyclopedia gives this advice:
So if you do intend to indulge in opiates, make sure to bring Doritos.
(A good friend informs me that this is doubly true of cannibinoids, but of this I cannot personally speak.)
It’s a good thing I got that scanner, because the entirety of page 398 is an adorable woodcut: Reading the Paper
What’s happening here is that the little girl is mimicking an adult activity known as “reading the paper”. The “paper” (or “newspaper”) used to be a large sheet of wood-pulp with ink printed on it. People would have the “paper” delivered to them regularly, often every day. It would contain information and opinions about local, national, and world events, much like a blog, only the information would be at least a day or two old.
Surprisingly, this curious practice survived well into 2008.
OK, I’ll stop being cute and just let you enjoy the bonus sexism on page 399.
“Woman’s Friend” indeed.
I have searched (and searched and searched) but cannot find any references to onanism, direct or oblique, in the Cyclopedia. It’s possible that I missed a very veiled reference. (Given the vast knowledge of euphemisms I cultivated as a teenager, I find this unlikely.) It’s also possible that I simply didn’t stumble across a mention in my skimming, or that Doctors Nichols and Jefferis saved this information for their other book. (Thanks for those links, Colophon and Mr. Moto!)
If you’re going to write a book specifically about sexual matters, there’s no need to cannibalize sales of that book by putting similar information into a guide more devoted to skin diseases and desserts (and string-breaking).
But the Guide does have something to say about preserving eyesight:
It’s possible your son has just spent too much time reading on trains. Perhaps you should play Dr. Agnew and take a close look at his diet, but that might be a waste of time. I mean, teenage boys are generally pretty discriminating about what and how much they’ll eat.
OK, stop laughing at that and chuckle at this instead, from page 224, in a section titled “Developing Healthy Children”:
I definitely need to scan that and email it to my brother, a father of four boys. They’re nowhere near teen-age yet, but they’re already a horde of locusts with bruises and grass stains. Perhaps a chuckle will give him momentary respite from weeping over his grocery bill.
The Cyclopedia doesn’t seem to say anything specifically about bathing suits. There is a section on how ladies should dress. It’s short enough to include in its entirety:
See also: A scan of this page, showing woodcuts of Queens Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne, as well as a scan of the following pages showing various hairstyles.
The book does say quite a lot about bathing in general. So much, in fact, that it’s too much to add to this post. If anyone is interested in bathing (and let’s hope at least some of you are), let me know and I’ll respond in a future post.
Wait a tick! The Guide does contain at least one reference to masturbation.
The Household Guide contains “A Complete Medical Dictionary”, one entry of which is:
Short, but effective.
(No, too obvious.)
I certainly wouldn’t say the “Complete Medical Dictionary” is complete, but it does contain the following entries for potentially naughty subjects:
That’s not exactly explicit material, it does show a certain lack of excessive prudery that one might have expected to find.
This non-naughty entry caught my attention as well: “Felon- A deep abscess of the finger.” AHA!
I’m amazed I didn’t think to check the dictionary until now. I was always one of those children who’d look up naughty words in the family dictionary and giggle over them. Why did I not notice these before?
Thanks. I don’t see any coffee or cigarettes. Either I’m doing it wrong or she is.
