I do NOT (honest!) have a 'thing' about these vessels; but to answer your
question, Mark, from living family memory -- yes, this was something else
couples shared. In fact, as a child I was instructed in the hygienic
techniques of emptying, with slop-pail and disinfectant. One quite took it
for granted, and it was much more civilised in the middle of the night and
the weather than heading out to a two-seater earth-closet. We had no
plumbing of any description, other than a single cold tap, until I was eight
or nine. Hence I could read Anne of Green Gables without realising it was
set in the nineteenth century rather than rural Wiltshire in 1950. I only
twigged when the series reached the Great War.
There now, I'm sure you were all panting to know that!
best joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 6:38 PM
Subject: Re: Brahms
> Funny you should mention chamber pots, as I was thinking about them
> earlier
> today. Apparently there was a degree of intimacy between bedmates in those
> days that we no longer share, tho nobody, in a serious vein at least
> (Robin: I assume that there's something in the Scottish Chaucerians),
> writes about those particular moans and grunts. "My beloved's farts are
> like a dove's and smell of gardens." "Lo, he farteth like a young roe,
> leaping upon the mauntains."
>
> Question: did couples share the same chamber pot?
>
> Any Annales (anal) historians in the crowd?
>
> Another lost performance, went with my first marriage (if you divorce a
> musician be sure to be there when the music's divided): Horszowski
> (spelling?) doing the Diabellis.
>
> Mark
>
>
> At 01:00 PM 5/20/2005, you wrote:
>>Have you heard the story about Brahms's beard? That famous identifying
>>growth came comparatively late for those days, when he was pushing thirty,
>>and so baby-faced that he was refused entry to the casino in Baden-Baden
>>on
>>the grounds that he wasn't old enough. So he grew the beard so as to look
>>his actual age, and wrote to a friend, 'Prepare your wife for a truly
>>terrible one, for I fear that nothing which has been suppressed for so
>>long
>>can be beautiful.'
>>
>>Roger and I spent our honeymoon in Baden-Baden, and I at least was
>>delighted
>>to find a house where Brahms used to stay and compose during the summers,
>>turned into a museum. His desk and pens, his coffee-machine, his bed, with
>>a
>>little cupboard beside it which I opened to find -- yes, his chamber-pot.
>>
>>best joanna
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 5:26 PM
>>Subject: Re: Brahms
>>
>>
>>>And, hey Halvard, if he really said that, he's my kind of person...
>>>
>>>Doug
>>>On 20-May-05, at 9:44 AM, Halvard Johnson wrote:
>>>
>>>>How amazing to find this Brahms-fest going on this morning!
>>>>I must admit I blow hot and cold on Brahms, but am currently
>>>>in a warmish phase, especially with regard to the viola quintets.
>>>>
>>>>Hal "If there is anyone here I have not
>>>> offended, I apologize."
>>>> --Johannes Brahms
>>>Douglas Barbour
>>>11655 - 72 Avenue NW
>>>Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
>>>(780) 436 3320
>>>
>>>Words cling to other words
>>>As we have seen, although even these are
>>>Migratory and the forgotten shows through as correction.
>>>This noun has been defunct for centuries.
>>>
>>> Ann Lauterbach
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