Kid Gloves and Chilblains in Literature

Photo #1: one of my many book shelves [also note: an 8-ball & the, alas, pink, date-ball]

Photo #2: overflow-- books in boxes
Photo #3: one of my much loved reading nooks

I have claimed [rather coyly, I admit] that I cannot read; I have also claimed that "reading is my hobby" [10/20/06]. Now it must be admitted that both claims were eroneous [although asserted for the best of reasons]. For, once declare my erudution, I would be beseiged with requests: to create "Cliff Notes," write book reviews, etc.

Now the truth must be revealed since kid gloves and chilblains have intruded into the Roushanzamir world & have had a sadly direct impact on my daily life [e.g. walking in damp, raw, & cold curtailed]. Pauvre Mama. Last year it was shingles. And as you have probably guessed by now, kid gloves & chilblains [on the toes] have reared their collective heads [to use a frightful metaphor].

As for reading, I practice of that human art voraciously. I've read and reread amongst the classics and contemporary global literature and therefore accumlated [almost] innumerable books [see shot above for but a tiny example] as well as vast general knowledge and extraneous, but fascianting, details of humans' cultural, political-economic, and social practices.

No research required. Below find a few instances of kid gloves & chilblains in literature. And behold, the world revells in joy amongst sorrow, delight amongst [highly qualified] agony and interest amongst ignominy.

Let us journey through time & text as we a sip few literary cocktails [check back for more on the cocktail or read July 31 & November 25, 2006] .

"...Edward cannot get his boots on to come to school as he has chilblains so badly...." anonymous note from parent to school teacher in Edwardian England.









"...our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains...." from Jane Eyre (C. Bronte, formerly Currer Bell]


"....his mother left her husband
in Egypt with her 5 children, returning to London, where he remembers his mother as tormented by cracked chilblains covering her hands." from the biography of C. S. Forester

from Little Dorrit by the incomparable C. Dickens:

"....to think of the days when papa used to bring me here the least of girls a perfect mass of chilblains to be stuck upon a chair with my feet on the rails and stare at Arthur--pray excuse me--Mr Clennam--the least of boys in the frightfullest of frills and jackets ere yet Mr F.appeared a misty shadow on the horizon paying attentions like the well-known spectre of some place in Germany beginning with a B is a moral lesson inculcating that all the paths in life are similar to the paths down in the North of England where they get the
coals and make the iron and things gravelled with ashes!"

A lighter touch:

"I once loved a lassie from Greenleigh
Whose comportment was naught short of queenly.
When she grows old and stout,
Wracked with chilblains and gout,
I'll embrace her no less, but more keenly."
from Avant News, Tomorrow's News Today

Glance at this recommended cure for chilblains from Godey's Ladies Book & Magazine: "....household remedy for chilblains, pot pourri, to gild without gold, hot water...."

Or more specifically, again from Jane Eyre: "The recommended cure for chilblains was to apply a poultice of hot roasted onions to the affected area and leave for two to three days, if not cured earlier...."

Now, faithful fans, from the indignity of chilblains to the rareified world of kid gloves, you'll be [perhaps] happily astonished by this first quotation from chapter 2, Alice in Wonderland:

"After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning , splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!' Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you please, sir--' The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go."

Or from My Uncle James, Guy de Maupassant:

“Every Sunday, dressed in our best, we would take our walk along the pier. My father, in a frock coat, high hat and kid gloves, would offer his arm to my mother, decked out and beribboned like a ship on a holiday. My sisters, who were always ready first, would await the signal for leaving; but at the last minute someone always found a spot on my father’s frock coat, and it had to be wiped away quickly with a rag moistened with benzine. " [as for benzine, it too appears in myriad tomes & recalls days gone by almost as effectively as chilblains & kid gloves-- all 3 however gradually passing from everyday use & awareness]

In the [could it be more?] depressing book, Of Human Bondage" by Mr. Somerset Maugham, a striking reversal of the usual [chapter 88!]:

"She had taken her hair out of the curling pins and now wore an elaborate fringe. She had on a plain black dress and black kid gloves…."

Appropriately following the previous example, Roy Fuller titled his mystery: Death Wears Kid Gloves. [this appears in Popular Detective, 3/47]

And finally:

I know you must wonder why I've turned to this method of cheering Mama in her moments of discomfort and despair? Ah, the happy memories of reading & rereading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

"Jo [see illustration below] thanked him and gladly went, wishing she had two neat [kid] gloves when she saw the nice, pearl-colored ones her partner wore. The hall was empty, and they had a grand polka, for Laurie danced well, and taught her the German step, which delighted Jo being full of swing and spring> When the music stopped, they sat down on the stairs to get their breath, and Laurie was in the midst of an account of a students' festival at Heidelberg when Meg appeared in search of her sister. She beckoned, and Jo reluctantly followed her into aside room, where she found her on a sofa, holding her foot, and looking pale." [German step, like benzine, long forgotten]

Would that Mama experience the life-restoring pleasures of the best of books & the warming light of a blazing fire. For herein lies the cure as it would also helped forestall the recurring scourge of chilblains [soothe the feet & heat the gloves].

I sincerely trust that each of you have enjoyed [and will benefit from!] this romp through literary history. And further, that you never experience the pain of chilblains; and that you have, or will have, the pleasure of wearing a pair of kid gloves.

For now, adieu & as ever thank you, faithful fans.