my dad was raised in the British boarding school system from the age of nine, and modelled his entire philosophy of behaviour and child-raising technique on what he learnt therein.

...

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

@BoysenberryCider The execution-by-prison of Wilde for being gay is what you're hanging your hat on?

Cuz like... No. I really don't have to give them credit, especially not in the face of that shit.

All largely true.

Also, one of my bugbears is equating the 19th century with "Victorian". She was born in 1819 and came to the throne in 1837. Over a third of the way into the century.

So much bad stuff that happened in the early 19th century is routinely mislabelled as Victorian.

The Castle of Otranto was published in 1764. What the fuck does that have to do with Victoria?

Calling this shit Victorian is just blaming the woman. For stuff that happened before she was born.

I would love to read a book or anthology of chapters exploring this topic. There is an incredible book proposal in this post

(I’ve ordered Caliban and the witch as recommended in one of the comments)

@Lyle they only built the sewers because the entire city of London stank one summer.

Not because hygiene, or because Dr Snow's research into typhoid and water.

Because they still believed that smells carried disease and if the entire city stank, even the rich would get sick.

They did not spend that kind of money out of charity, trust in science, or clean water, but because most people still believed in miasma.

The rich were tired of the city stinking. So they paid to fix it.

I'm very interested to read Julian of Norwich now, do you recommend reading her in Middle English or a particular modern translation? This line on wikipedia made me lean towards original, but Grace Warrick's translation seems respected too.

Julian says that sin is behovely, which is often translated as "necessary", "appropriate", or "fitting".

sorry, I'd hoped my reply came across as light-hearted, but obviously it didn't. To rephrase in a more serious way - "I completely agree with all of your points about Victorian society, even more so those on boarding school.

However, I unironically enjoy several great artists from that period. Perhaps unsurprisingly, society tried to crush their spirits in every way and failed. But I like them".

Does that make sense? I'm not good at twitter style discourse.

@8petros Kipling has a Vermont hook. I was read Kipling’s “Just So Stories” in dramatic voicing at bedtime as a child.

vtdigger.org/2017/12/31/kiplin…

Then Again: Kipling’s brief and stormy stay in Vermont

The author built a large house here but fled after little more than four years, hounded in a courtroom and by local gossip.

^{Mark Bushnell (VTDigger)}