22 September
1832 [New York]
Went into a shop to order a pair of
shoes. The shopkeepers
in this place with whom I have hitherto
had to deal, are either
condescendingly familiar, or insolently indifferent in
their manner. Your washerwoman sits down
before you, while you are standing speaking to
her; and a shop-boy bringing things for your inspection, not only sits down,
but keeps his hat on in your
drawing room. The worthy man to whom I
went for my shoes was so amazingly ungracious, that at first I thought I
would go out of the shop; but recollecting
that I should probably only go
farther and fare worse, I gulped, sat down and was measured.
All
this is bad; it has its origins in a vulgar misapprehension,
which confounds ill breeding with independence,
and leads people to fancy
that they elevate themselves above their
condition by discharging its duties
and obligations discourteously.
Note: I suspect we
have all felt what Miss Fanny Kemble (1809-1893), the
legendary English stage actress and memoirist, describes with such
passion and precision. I know
I do daily, every time
I pick up the phone and suffer an
unbidden, anonymous marketing and sales hectorer addressing
me by my first name and thinking that by dismissing me of
my privacy and dignity he gains an advantage. No. I am heading north, toward the
Big Sky. Some day I’ll
be free. I
won’t care. Just
wait and see. Till that day can be. No mind. Nevermind.
Upper: Thomas Sully, Portrait
of Fanny Kemble, 1834.
Lower: Eric Dadswell, Fanny
Kemble II, from Girl (Comic) Annual, 1958.
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