July 8, 2009
Missed Connections
a century before Craigslist or the back page of the Voice:
Will Lizzie, or Clara, or Julia, or any other handsome and agreeable young lady that was seen on Broadway any day last week, and is matrimonially inclined, send her address, enclosing photograph, to Romeo, box 144 Herald office?
If any two young gentlemen who were on Broadway any day last week are desirous of forming the acquaintance of the two young ladies who crossed Fulton ferry one day last month, they can do so by addressing either Lizzie or Clara, at station A.
(Via Manhattan Users Guide)
This is the 1864 ad that made Miss Epstein launch her fascinating blog:
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN ALL respects favorably situated in life, as life is commonly estimated, but still wanting the essential element of happiness; of prepossessing appearance and manners, elevated aims, and, he trusts, no ordinary capabilities and attainments; independent in thought and action, enlarged, liberal and charitable in views, to whom all modes (if honorable) are alike, so they achieve the desired end, despising the narrow bigotry and conventionalities of society, which, by interposing barriers to the free intercourse of the sexes, and thus limiting our choices, condemn multitudes of even the most favored to lives of celibacy and misery; regarding the world as his matrimonial field, and believing that it contains somewhere the congenial spirit—the “bright particular star”—the light of whose blessed presence and sweet influence his social confines, extensive as contracted souls would consider them, have shut him out from, adopts this method as the only one open to him of testing the reality of his faith and hopes. He makes worldly advantages, beyond unquestionable respectability, no condition; but none who, to an agreeable person, expressive face and engaging manners—in short, an attractive tout ensemble externally—do not unite brains and brainsbrains (the latter especially) of no common order, need reply; and none such, however high their positions, need fear to do so, for their incognitos will of course remain in their own keeping should not a correspondence lead to an acquaintance, in which case the world will be none the wiser as to the means. He is no wife-seeker on easy terms; he intends this for no husband-seekers of the same class, but only for those who, with resources of soul and wealth of affection greater than their opportunities however great, can (at least in an exceptional case, as this claims to be,) rise above the prejudice of mode and tyranny of custom in the search for happiness, and in the hope of escaping the relentless social constriction which crushes our best aspirations within the folds of its “circles” and thus dooms us to become the helpless victims of more matrimonial chance or accident. Full letters (including description, personal and mental,) solicited, as indicative of character and capacity. Address BERTRAM, Box No. 152 Times Office.
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Romance can bloom in the Dead Letters Department. Just ask an archivist.
Dear archivist,
Can romance bloom in the Dead Letters Department?
Hmmmnh. Pondering a sideline as an advice columnist.
But I will only offer advice concerning what you might have done in the past.
Full letters (including description, personal and mental,) solicited, as indicative of character and capacity.
And straight-acting, no fems. Oh, and a photo please.
–Bertram
Clean. No drugs.
A great big baseball bat with low-hangers.
Great big balls of flaming queenage.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped –
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said.
– from “Casey at the Bat” (1888) by Ernest Thayer.
The saddest poym ever placed on a page.
*Sheila said “sturdy batsman.*
And she said (quoting): “That ain’t my style.”
Though I do like me a sturdy batsman.