I recently came across a post by The Rhode Island Historical Society about a gossip column called “Social Salad” that ran in the Providence, Rhode Island Sunday Morning Transcript in 1883-1884. It seems the column was comprised of one-sentence entries that could easily be the Tweets of a modern social gossip. By the look of it, some are just about as mundane and pointless as what some people post on Twitter or Facebook. Others, however, are pretty amusing. Here are some of my favorites:

• “We know a Providence business man who has one hat for wear in Providence and another for Boston.” (Shocking!)
• “A drunken Irishman who visited the Dime Museum last Monday was as mad as a March hare because he was not permitted to jab his pen knife into the superfluous head of a double headed cow in order that he might ascertain if it was alive.” (I don’t even know where to begin…)
• “Last Thursday morning in Parker’s barber shop, a man who was looking intently in the glass soliliquised as follows -’By thunder old boy I’m tickled to death with you. In fact, I think you are just a daisy!’” (I think this guy was the nut in the “social salad.”)
• “Little Charlie Northup, the two year old son of Robert Northup, is a fine waltzer, and makes successful attempts at ventriloquism.” (Does little “Chucky” have red hair by any chance?)
• “A well known business man who attended a seance at Mrs. Allen’s recently was visited by the spirit of a sweet heart who had died a year since, and was startled by some of the communications received from the departed one.” (So it’s the communications that surprised him, not the “visit”?)

Described as “Personal Paragraphs, Pungent Particularities and Points” (only Daffy Duck could do that phrase true justice) and “Newsy Leaves of Prominent Society Events Torn from The Transcript’s Note Book,” Social Salad could easily have been written by a 19th century Perez Hilton (minus the irreverent scribblings, of course). It just goes to show that some concepts are never really new.

-Tori

But be warned, whether you’re one of the masses exchanging your scrap gold for quick cash or one of the wealthy elite consigning your magnificent jewels through an exclusive auctioneer, you can be sure that some self-satisfied snob somewhere in the world thinks what you’re doing is “vulgar.”

If, like me, you’re one of the masses, consider yourself lucky: there are too many of us to be singled out personally for the epithet and, in any case, little better is expected from the likes of us. On the other hand, the more prominent you are, the more likely you are to get a public verbal beat-down, especially if you happen to be selling an inheritance you received from someone still more prominent than yourself.

A perfect example of the latter scenario took place in 2006 when the children of Britain’s Princess Margaret auctioned off many of their late mother’s personal possessions, including her jewelry, at Christie’s, some four years after her death. Critics of the sale were up in arms, calling it “humiliating,” “disrespectful,” and, of course, “vulgar.”

It mattered little that the Princess’s children had no need for their late mother’s valuable tiaras, diamond necklaces, or Fabergé clocks. Or that they wanted to use the proceeds from the sale to pay inheritance taxes, buy things they could actually use, or donate to charity. Instead, the vulgarity of it all, according to the critics, lay in the fact that these objects once owned by royalty were allowed to slip into the hands of “souvenir hunters.” Above all, however, was the suggestion that by publicly exchanging the jewels for cash, these near-royals behaved shamefully like the rest of us by unabashedly seeking cash for gold.

In addition to being arrogant and insulting – not to mention hypocritical – these conclusions are so far removed from historical reality it’s almost ridiculous. If anything, the privileged and wealthy have taken full advantage of jewelry for its liquidity and viability as portable wealth for time immemorial. And although some have chosen to do so discreetly and quietly, many have chosen to take full advantage of the higher prices a distinguished provenance can command.

This is especially true in the case of royalty, who often amassed jewelry not only for personal enjoyment and self-aggrandizement, but also as a nest egg in the event of revolution or usurpation. Frequently, that same jewelry was sold by the original owners or by successive generations for any number of legitimate reasons – and to whomever was buying – to little critical outcry. (Incidentally, the mistresses of royalty and other wealthy men have also employed this method of “insurance” throughout history, and for similar reasons as their royal counterparts. But, unseemly as it may be, this particular connection is not necessarily what makes the critics cringe.)

Personally, I’m inclined to see historically important jewelry preserved wherever possible, but it’s sanctimonious and unrealistic to suggest that the heirs of the rich and illustrious – never mind the rest of us – should hold family jewelry sacrosanct and refrain from selling to the highest bidder, especially when there are no legal or ethical reasons to do otherwise and the proceeds could be put to more practical use. In fact, when it comes to important and historic jewelry, the more public and transparent the sale, the more likely it is that historical provenance will be preserved, or at least recorded, for posterity.

If such magnificent jewels were all sold on the sly – let’s say, slipped in an envelope and mailed attention: “Cash for Gold” – a great many historically important and beautiful collections might be lost, never to get the recognition they deserve. Now that would be vulgar.

-Tori

Irrational fears aside, I recently discovered that my childhood reaction to the 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera kept me as an adult from understanding the true brilliance of actor Lon Chaney (1883-1930). Aside from the generally immature impression that the film was “boring,” I recall thinking that the phantom was only interesting for his superficially ghoulish appearance. College film classes gave me a new appreciation of silent films, but only raised my esteem of Chaney to a general respect for all good silent film actors with a talent for non-verbal expression.

So I was more than a little bit surprised to discover the uncommon genius of “The Man of a Thousand Faces” late one Sunday night during a TCM airing of a lesser-known Lon Chaney film, The Black Bird, which was originally released in 1926, just a few months after Phantom. Barely watching at first, I quickly became engrossed by Chaney’s portrayal of a tormented man living a double life as two very physically and emotionally different people: the crippled and charitable “Bishop” and his perfectly fit criminal brother, “The Black Bird.” He accomplishes this not through mere make-up and silent film pantomime, but by actual physical transformation – even self-deformation – and heart-wrenching emotional expression. I was entranced.

I think there are few modern actors who could ever come close to achieving Lon Chaney’s skill and vision. This is partly because Chaney was both an innovator and a master of self-disguise in almost every sense – from doing his own make-up and physical special effects to seemingly making his own limbs disappear. (If you ask me, Brad Pitt as “Benjamin Button” is no more believable with the benefit of modern technology and a team of special effects and make-up experts than Lon Chaney was in almost any of his roles more than 70 years ago.) More poignantly, Chaney’s abilities were founded in extraordinary circumstances: both his parents were deaf and mute, so he spent his entire early childhood exploring alternate ways to communicate.

It’s a shame that our adult perception of almost anything can be so easily swayed by what we remember of it from childhood. If we perceive it as boring or confusing as children, we disregard it as adults. I guess this means I’m going to have to give Willard another chance.

-Tori

P.S. Another somewhat obscure Lon Chaney film I recommend is The Unknown from 1927, which also features a young Joan Crawford. For more on Lon Chaney’s amazing talents, check out “A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney’s Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures” by Michael F. Blake.

Non-Fiction
The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England by Amanda Vickers
Court Lady and Country Wife: Two Noble Sisters in Seventeenth-Century England by Lita-Rose Betcherman
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox by Stella Tillyard
Marie Antoinette’s Daugher by Alice Curtis Desmond
Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill (two volumes) by Ralph G. Martin
Ladies of the Grand Tour by Brian Dolan
My Blue Notebook, The Diary of Lian de Pougy
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
Strapless (John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X) by Deborah Davis
The Exquisite Exile (the life of Peggy Shippen Arnold) by Harry Stanton Tillotson
The Bouviers by John H. Davis
Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives by Katie Hickman

Fiction
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
Dangerous Liasons by Chodoleros de Laclos
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The Constant Sinner (also titled Babe Gordon) by Mae West
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Royal Physician’s Visit: A Novel by Per Olov Enquist
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
Wives and Daughers by Elizabeth Gaskill
The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

My articles on TimeTravel-Britain:
Hever Castle: The Childhood Home of Anne Boleyn
Hatfield House: Childhood Home of Queen Elizabeth I
Kew Palace: Rebirth of a Royal Retreat
Stirling, Borthwick and Lochleven: The Scottish Haunts of Mary, Queen of Scots
Music, Saurians and Colored Fire at the Crystal Palace
Swiss Cottage: A Royal Playhouse
Palaces on the Periphery: Marlborough House and Clarence House
Marble Hill House: Retreat for a Royal Mistress (or two)
Frogmore House: A Royal Family Home
Gawthorpe Hall — Legacy of the Shuttleworths