Thoughts from the Archive

"Je n'ai pas eu le tems de broder le fichu de melie, mais je vais natter des cheveux pour lui faire un collier comme la mein"*
 --Victorine du Pont to Sophie Dalmas du Pont, September 18, 1808

Lessons learned. When there's no time for embroidery, hacking off some hair and making a necklace is totally justified, Non?

*I haven't had time to embroider the kerchief for Melie but I will plait some hair to make her a necklace like mine.

Thoughts from the Archive: Sympatico Edition

"We of course had been much delighted with the evening-- 'Call it but pleasure and the pill goes down' for under other circumstances to have passed two evenings in weeping & shrieking would be deemed an odd way of being amused and really does it not seem ridiculous to go to be made to feel miserable"
--Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy, April 19, 1833

Clearly we understand one another...who doesn't enjoy a good sob from time to time?

Thoughts from the Archive: Historical Dreamboat Edition

John Lowell to Rebecca Amory, 1789
"Mr Lowell's respectfull Compliments wait on Miss Amory - he has inclosed a tune apparently the same, she expressed a wish for, but from the shortness of it is apprehensive he is mistaken - he indulges a hope that Miss A. will in future honour him with her commands; and he can add with sincerity, that it shall ever be the study as it will certainly be the happiness of his Life to Afford her the smallest Gratification"

Thoughts from the archive...

To the well-meaning transcriber of Katharine Lawrence's diary:

Thank you for slogging through what I assume was a lot of teenager handwriting for my comfort and reading pleasure.  But when you insert in parentheses "here follows a description of gowns worn" before blithely moving on, I want to find you and throttle the life from you.

Best wishes,
The frustrated historian