#209604 - 02/17/13 11:06 AM
Social intercourse..Dickensian
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/08
Posts: 5287
Loc: Land of the Flat Water
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House Call
Letter from Charles Dickens to a chimney sweep, March 15, 1864:
Dear Sir,
Since you last swept my study chimney it has developed some peculiar eccentricities. Smoke has indeed proceeded from the cowl that surmounts it, but it has seemingly been undergoing internal agonies of a most distressing nature, and pours forth disastrous volumes of swarthy vapour into the apartment wherein I habitually labour. Although a comforting relief probably to the chimney, this is not altogether convenient to me. If you can send a confidential sub-sweep, with whom the chimney can engage in social intercourse, it might be induced to disclose the cause of the departure from its normal functions.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
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#209609 - 02/17/13 12:35 PM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: LukeJavan8]
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old hand
Registered: 11/13/11
Posts: 1029
Loc: Lancaster, UK
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The reply might well have read as follows:
16th March 1864
Mr C.Dickens, Esq.
Honoured Sir,
I wuz greatly distressed by your hintimation that all is not well wiv your noble chimbley after hit ad received my hattentions.
I shall immediately send Arry, my best climbin boy, oo is well acquainted with the fell ways of chimbleys.
I would respeckfully arst you ter make sartin that no lidies is presint on that occasion, as the hintercourse between climbin boys and their chimbleys can oftimes be arsh.
Your hobediant sv’t
Alf. Doolittle
Chimbley Sweep
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#209610 - 02/17/13 12:45 PM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: Rhubarb Commando]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/08
Posts: 5287
Loc: Land of the Flat Water
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Hey, OK !
I really liked it, especially the part about
absenting any gentlewomen.
You is a very creative mate.
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#209611 - 02/17/13 02:51 PM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: LukeJavan8]
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old hand
Registered: 11/13/11
Posts: 1029
Loc: Lancaster, UK
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Busman's holiday, I fear - C19 Social History is how I've earned my beer-moey these last 30 years.
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#209783 - 02/25/13 10:57 AM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: Rhubarb Commando]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/08
Posts: 5287
Loc: Land of the Flat Water
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- -and who the winners were!
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#209875 - 03/02/13 06:51 AM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: LukeJavan8]
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old hand
Registered: 11/13/11
Posts: 1029
Loc: Lancaster, UK
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I think there is a good chance that he was, Jackie.
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#209884 - 03/02/13 04:02 PM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: Tromboniator]
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old hand
Registered: 11/13/11
Posts: 1029
Loc: Lancaster, UK
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I'm sorry to hear that, Trombo! I'll agree that some of his lengthy descriptive passages are tedious - fairly obviously written to fill up the pages for his latest episode to be pubilshed in the magazine that week - but I would advise that you 'skip read' those bits (there is sometimes important information contained within the descriptions!) The stories always come to a satisfactory end - now and again a bitmawkish, but that was Dickens satisfying his Victorian public. On the whole, and despite some stylistic deficiencies (from a modernist point of view!) he is a very fine writer and many of his ideas are as current today as they were then!
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#210214 - 04/02/13 11:18 AM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: LukeJavan8]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/24/02
Posts: 7184
Loc: Vermont
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that's what movies are for.
;¬ )
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#210217 - 04/02/13 11:27 AM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: Buffalo Shrdlu]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/08
Posts: 5287
Loc: Land of the Flat Water
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You took the words out of my mouth.
I have many of them on DVD.
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#210224 - 04/02/13 04:40 PM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: Tromboniator]
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old hand
Registered: 11/13/11
Posts: 1029
Loc: Lancaster, UK
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There is nodoubt that Dickens is a writer - like Marmite - that you either love or hate! My dear wife was of the same opinion as you, Peter, deapite allmy proletysing.
I'm sure that a Freudian Analysist would make something out of it, but then - they always do, don't they?
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#210242 - 04/04/13 11:22 AM
Re: Social intercourse..Dickensian
[Re: LukeJavan8]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/24/02
Posts: 7184
Loc: Vermont
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heh
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