Ep. 683: Cranford | Chapter 5

Book talk begins at 9:31

A mysterious stranger arrives in town, and you just know the ladies of Cranford are ready to investigate... politely, of course.

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00:00 Episode start

01:28 2:42 Plum Deluxe Full Body Reset green tea. Plum Deluxe's CraftLit tea collection is here: https://bit.ly/craftlit-pdtea

Also, MAY RAFFLE - Sir Walter Scott Cross stitch from Rebecca S (Of Book it with Becca, who wrote the wonderful post: "What do you do with a problem like Emma?"

04:25 Gardening!

09:30 - START BOOK TALK: Last week, the lovely Mr Holbrook and his very sad passing.

12:06 Joint- Stock bank: > A bank owned by shareholders, operating under a charter or act of Parliament, and offering services to the public.

• Unlike older private banks (run by individuals or families), joint-stock banks were corporations, meaning shared risk and more capital.

• How bank books worked— A bank book (also called a passbook) was given to bank customers to record all transactions in their account—- Every deposit and withdrawal was manually written into the book by a bank clerk. The customer's copy was their only proof of the account's balance.

14:12 Envelope usage / turning inside out (ETSY doing this NOW)

• Whole vs half sheet and crossed letters

16:36 STRING and Indian-rubber rings

17:24 "India-rubber" was the 19th-century term for what we now just call rubber—and India-rubber rings were small rubber loops or bands like we use today.

• Came from the latex of tropical trees (especially Hevea brasiliensis)

18:42 TONQUIN beans: TONKA beans: Tonka beans are the wrinkled, black seeds of the Dipteryx odorata tree, native to South America. Chefs outside the US use them in desserts and to replace nuts. AND ILLEGAL in the USA since 1954 due to the presence of liver damaging "coumarin" - video on the beans - and this video was released just after I recorded this episode!

20:54 Full bottomed wig:

22:43 PADUASOY: heavy, rich corded or embossed silk fabric, From French - peau de soie, a cloth resembling serge (twill fabric with diagonal lines/ridges on both inner and outer surfaces per a two-up/two-down weave.)

24:19 Bottom of page a small "T.O." = turn over / Molly's writing is full of spelling like "Bewty" which is a subsequent joke line

25:49 Dum memor ipse Mei, dum Spiritus regift artus - Virgil, Æneid, IV.382, "While memory shall last and breath still control my limbs"

25:28 Carmen (lowercase) like CARMINA (song poem or verse)

26:54 Gentleman's Magazine 1782—Kind of an Atlantic Monthly—guess who contributed? Samuel Johnson!

27:18 M. T. Ciceroni's Epistolae: The letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BCE) Roman statesman, orator, philosopher, and writer with 800+ letters surviving

Heather before recording, in garden, with skewer pack:

28:41 "Rod in a pickle" - rod, method of punishment; pickle, something preserved for future use.

29:42 Life is a vale of tears: Psalm 84:6 also, description of a helicopter parent feels marvelously modern

30:21 Mrs Chapone (1727-1801) Contributed to the Rambler AND Gentleman's Magazine and wrote "Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773) and Mrs Carter (1717-1806) many languages and in 1758 published first translation of Epictetus THE Stoic Philosopher.

31:32 "Before Miss Edgeworth's 'Patronage' had banished wafers from polite society…": Patronage was a book (1814) with a character who was offended by a letter she received that was sealed with a wafer: "I wonder how any man can have the impertinence to send me his spittle" (I, 248)

33:06 "Old original post with stamp in the corner" not exactly the right watermark, but you get the idea…

34:30 "Sesquipedalian" writing - foot and a half long sesqui = 1-½ pedalis =foot looonng polysyllabic words

35:13 Buonaparte (Bony)1805 invasion fears - In case you still need to build your own BUG OUT BAG

36:55 David and Goliath, son of Jesse (I Samuel 17)

• Apollyon (Greek version) and Abbadon (Hebrew version) are names for an archangel In Revelation 9:11—> _"And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon." (Revelation 9:11, KJV)

• Meaning:

• Abaddon (Hebrew) means "destruction" or "place of destruction."

• Apollyon (Greek) means "destroyer."

• It's overblown biblical satire—calling someone "Apollyon" in Cranford is like referring to a strict schoolmarm as "Beelzebub."

38:08 Bonus Bernardus non video omnia The Blessed Bernard does not see everything - maybe said by St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)— This quote is often attributed (possibly apocryphally) to Peter Abelard, the 12th-century theologian, as a gentle jab at St. Bernard of Clairvaux, with whom he clashed theologically.

• Meaning: Even the wisest man (here, Blessed Bernard) can be wrong sometimes.

Post-chapter Notes

• Chapone and Carter and Bluestockings (see below for big notes)

• real historical women writers, both part of the 18th-century English Bluestocking movement—educated, literary women who promoted female intellectualism and moral development. Gaskell is absolutely name-dropping intentionally here for Cranford's themes of domestic gentility, moral seriousness, and self-improvement.

⸻

Mrs. Hester Chapone (1727–1801)

• Best known for Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773), addressed to her niece.

• It was a conduct book for young women, offering advice on moral character, reading habits, and proper behavior.

• Hugely popular—Cranford-adjacent readers would know her by name.

⸻

Mrs. Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806)

• A respected scholar, translator, and poet—a genuine intellectual heavyweight.

• Famously translated the Discourses of Epictetus from Greek in 1758—the first English translation by a woman, and one of the first of Epictetus at all.

• She knew multiple classical and modern languages and was close friends with figures like Samuel Johnson and Hannah More.

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