it seems to have escaped your notice that the quotation that led me to start this thread did have a typo in it: "drearest" instead of "dearest". But I don't know who committed it.

No it didn't escape my notice. I just don't believe that it was a typo. I prefer to think of it as an interesting usage from the period. And, as our Inker from Ithaca has pointed out, it's an acknowledged usage. Soooo - no typo.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...