strictly private years ago, one of those
dame schools in the South, usually called something like Montfaucon
or Thirlwood or Miss Tidy’s Establishment for Young Ladies and run
by a woman with a name like Miss Monflathers, a bun-haired duchess
of malfeasance from the English-Speaking Union who was given to
wearing sensflectum crinolines and horsehair jupon and whipping her
girls at night. At the turn of the century, however, Quinsy came
under state receivership and, although suffering the shocks of
democracy, remained yet blind to change. It was an institution,
still, whose expressed intention was to diminish in distance and
time the dangers of creeping modernity and with prudes for proctors
and dowagers for deans to produce girls tutored in matters not only
academic but on subjects touching on the skillet, the needle, and,
though strangers yet to pain, even the nursery, a matter, it was
confidentially given out, not unrelated to that regrettable but
thankfully fleeting moment during which they would simply have to
bite on a bullet and endure.
A legendary respect for the Southern lady—doubt it
who dares!— was all through the histories. The War Between the
States proved it. Robbed they might have been, subjected to
privation, yes, and burned out of hearth and home, but NEVER once
had they been set upon by masked outlaws, howling and rapacious
Negroes, or drunken Yankee soldiers who couldn’t see straight
anyway. And would you perchance like to know why? Their
manners
protected them. And those same standards of
conduct would always prevail in the South.
The Quinsy handbook—a little bluebird-colored affair
which bore on its cover the sphragistic of a dove rising through
hymeneal clouds and carrying a banner with the college motto, “We
Preach, You Teach”—codified behavior for the girls. They were not
merely to have a type-and-file appearance. They were asked to wear
white gloves pouring tea, to perfume the wrists, and to maintain
custody of the eyes. They were advised to tithe, to avoid
boisterous hats, and to use the neglected herb, cerfeuil. They were
asked neither to lisp, squint, wink, talk loud, look fierce or
foolish nor bite the lips, grind the teeth, speak through the nose,
nor guffle their soup. They were encouraged, on the other hand, to
sew turkeywork, to refer to their young men as “gentlemen callers,”
and to accumulate, with a view to future use, egg-frames, salvers,
muffineers, and knife-rests. Above all, they were to familiarize
themselves with the history of the school.
The Virginian’s was a record of which to be proud.
Tradition! Custom! History!—a meal of fresh heritables all to be
washed down with flagons of the fermented wine of the past. It was
a living heritage. There were no limits, furthermore, to the
historicogeographical importance of Quinsyburg itself, and it had
long been a matter of great pride to the townsfolk there to reflect
on the fact that Mr. Jefferson, once stopping by overnight, had
found the old Timberlake Hotel “clubbable” and that, in 1865,
General Robert E. Lee with his brave soldiers, on the march from
Saylor’s Creek to fateful Appomattox, straggled through this very
town, at which time the little sisters of mercy in the college
dorms flew with unspeakable horror to the sides of the wounded and
selflessly gave of themselves, cradling their hurt heads, applying
cupping glasses, plasters, and bandages, and humming strains of
“The Bonnie Blue Flag.” But today?
Today was another story. Few even bothered to put
flowers on the Confederate monument anymore. The historical
society, its funds dwindling, had been removed to a room over the
theatre. And who ever took time anymore to visit the rare-book room
in Smethwick Library where Miss Pouce, not without effort, had
carefully gathered in a row of glass cases all that Quinsy
memorabilia? It was primarily a collection of old photographs, gum
bichromate prints, and bent platinotypes preserving the
dame schools in the South, usually called something like Montfaucon
or Thirlwood or Miss Tidy’s Establishment for Young Ladies and run
by a woman with a name like Miss Monflathers, a bun-haired duchess
of malfeasance from the English-Speaking Union who was given to
wearing sensflectum crinolines and horsehair jupon and whipping her
girls at night. At the turn of the century, however, Quinsy came
under state receivership and, although suffering the shocks of
democracy, remained yet blind to change. It was an institution,
still, whose expressed intention was to diminish in distance and
time the dangers of creeping modernity and with prudes for proctors
and dowagers for deans to produce girls tutored in matters not only
academic but on subjects touching on the skillet, the needle, and,
though strangers yet to pain, even the nursery, a matter, it was
confidentially given out, not unrelated to that regrettable but
thankfully fleeting moment during which they would simply have to
bite on a bullet and endure.
A legendary respect for the Southern lady—doubt it
who dares!— was all through the histories. The War Between the
States proved it. Robbed they might have been, subjected to
privation, yes, and burned out of hearth and home, but NEVER once
had they been set upon by masked outlaws, howling and rapacious
Negroes, or drunken Yankee soldiers who couldn’t see straight
anyway. And would you perchance like to know why? Their
manners
protected them. And those same standards of
conduct would always prevail in the South.
The Quinsy handbook—a little bluebird-colored affair
which bore on its cover the sphragistic of a dove rising through
hymeneal clouds and carrying a banner with the college motto, “We
Preach, You Teach”—codified behavior for the girls. They were not
merely to have a type-and-file appearance. They were asked to wear
white gloves pouring tea, to perfume the wrists, and to maintain
custody of the eyes. They were advised to tithe, to avoid
boisterous hats, and to use the neglected herb, cerfeuil. They were
asked neither to lisp, squint, wink, talk loud, look fierce or
foolish nor bite the lips, grind the teeth, speak through the nose,
nor guffle their soup. They were encouraged, on the other hand, to
sew turkeywork, to refer to their young men as “gentlemen callers,”
and to accumulate, with a view to future use, egg-frames, salvers,
muffineers, and knife-rests. Above all, they were to familiarize
themselves with the history of the school.
The Virginian’s was a record of which to be proud.
Tradition! Custom! History!—a meal of fresh heritables all to be
washed down with flagons of the fermented wine of the past. It was
a living heritage. There were no limits, furthermore, to the
historicogeographical importance of Quinsyburg itself, and it had
long been a matter of great pride to the townsfolk there to reflect
on the fact that Mr. Jefferson, once stopping by overnight, had
found the old Timberlake Hotel “clubbable” and that, in 1865,
General Robert E. Lee with his brave soldiers, on the march from
Saylor’s Creek to fateful Appomattox, straggled through this very
town, at which time the little sisters of mercy in the college
dorms flew with unspeakable horror to the sides of the wounded and
selflessly gave of themselves, cradling their hurt heads, applying
cupping glasses, plasters, and bandages, and humming strains of
“The Bonnie Blue Flag.” But today?
Today was another story. Few even bothered to put
flowers on the Confederate monument anymore. The historical
society, its funds dwindling, had been removed to a room over the
theatre. And who ever took time anymore to visit the rare-book room
in Smethwick Library where Miss Pouce, not without effort, had
carefully gathered in a row of glass cases all that Quinsy
memorabilia? It was primarily a collection of old photographs, gum
bichromate prints, and bent platinotypes preserving the
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