Not a Slippery Slope

 

Here’s a bit of a riddle to introduce today’s topic: can you guess what it is?

• Jane Austen wrote her books on one.
• The daughters of George III had them for their voluminous correspondence and artwork.
• You can order one on-line right this minute, from a multitude of places.

What is it?

It is one of these: writing slopes!

Writing slopes are elegant little boxes (generally twelve to fourteen inches wide and ten to twelve inches deep.) They’re called slopes because they open like so, providing an angled surface (generally around twenty-five or thirty degrees), usually covered with fabric (blue velvet is a favorite) that provides an absorbent surface on which to write—in short, a portable desk.

The interiors are divided into small compart- ments in which one could keep writing paper, pens, ink, penknives, sealing wax, and all the other appurtenances of writing. The tiny ink bottles just slay me!

 

They could be relatively plain, like this one:

 

 

Or elaborately inlaid with decorative woods, bone, mother of pearl, and metal. They often had locks, so that one could store private correspondence in them; some even had secret compartments.

The world is fortunate that Jane Austen's writing slope, a gift from her father in the 1790s, has been preserved—along with are purported to be some of her spectacles! It is in the collections of the British Library; go here to see a couple of really cool 3-D manipulative images of it.

And as for writing slopes today, physical therapists, teachers, and orthopedists have found that using a slanted surface to write, read, or draw at, which is why slanted surfaces are readily available today. However, I’ve yet to see one as pretty as those from the 19th century!

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Speaking of slopes…slide your mind back to March 2022, when NineteenTeen welcomed guest blogger Katie Kennedy to talk about which president she would most prefer to go bathing suit shopping with (among other things!) I’m happy to report that Katie’s The Presidents Decoded: A Guide to the Leaders Who Shaped Our Nation is out today!  You can find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your favorite independent bookstore.

No Slang Like Old Slang...Unless It's New! Part the Six

With school back in session, it seems like an appropriate time to call class into session at NineteenTeen and spring a quiz on you all: it’s time to play “No Slang Like Old Slang…Unless it’s New, the Nineteenteen game where you have to identify whether a word or turn of phrase was used in the 19th century, or has a later (20th century) origin. I’ll post the answers in the comment column...and don’t worry, this won’t count toward your final grade. 😊 Answers are in the comments section.

Pick up your pencils…and GO!

1. Ripsnorter: something of exceptional strength, someone of remarkable qualities. (The raspberry cordial our stillroom maid makes is such a ripsnorter that no one under the age of twenty-one at our house is ever served it.)

2. Wreak havoc: Create chaos or devastation. (That rule was established after my younger brother sneaked a thimbleful and wreaked havoc in the pantry.)

3. Rush one’s fences: To act precipitately. (His parents wish that Herbert would stop rushing his fences and proposing to girls after the second dance.)

4. Rush Hour: A time of day when traffic is at a peak. (The cleverest young men dine at their clubs in St. James’s on Wednesdays to avoid the rush hour traffic around Almack’s.)

5. Hocus-pocus: Nonsensical words used by magicians as an incantation preceding a trick. (My younger brother is much dismayed by the fact that no matter how often he mutters “hocus pocus” when riding his pony, he does not in fact transform into the Duke of Wellington on Copenhagen.)

6. Hang out: A place where one is accustomed to spend much time. (It is monstrously unfair that my brothers practically live at Brooks's, but that my friends and I are not allowed anywhere to hang out.)

7. Viewpoint: A person’s way of looking at an issue, or a physical place from which to look at a scene. (Of course, from our parents’ viewpoint that is probably a blessing, as we are much more likely to hatch nefarious plots together.)

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Don't forget that the answers will be posted in the comment section. So how did you do?