the beauty of prose

What! are all my relatives in that land of disease and death yet spared though afflicted. Yes is the response that comes trough your letter and hail, blessed intelligence, which has for the moment quieted suspense, and the disturbing of anxiety.

Behold, the &c!

Ever paused to consider the depth of meaning behind the notation &c? What many things lie behind the innocent use of the two characters & and c? It's truly wonderful what those two characters can mean -- the only trouble is that they could mean so many things that we're still not exactly sure what you meant when you wrote &c.

In times past, &c denoted the words "et cetera," which is our times we write as etc. "et" literally means "and", so it can be properly denoted by the character &. Then, "cetera" abbreviated as c makes for the notation &c.

Which brings me to this point: If you're a college student in 1855 and you're writing a diary in your pocket calendar, you only have space for three half sentences. So, it's perfectly naturally to write,

Went to prayer meeting tonight, &c &c.

or

Went to town, visited Mr. C, &c &c.

The only trouble is that I as a historian have no real idea what you mean by &c &c.

'Twas what I ran across in a young man's diary while researching at Oglethorpe University. I was reading, writing, &c &c.

Some things just never change

While reading letters from college girls from the 1850's, I came across this line:

Oh! I am so glad that vacation is so near. I am tired, tired of studying.

My sentiments exactly.

Don't you just love non-standard spelling?

In all my work for my thesis, I developed a new appreciation for penmanship and spelling classes of my elementary years. One has to admit that one can become accustomed to anyone's handwriting when reading an entire semester's diary straight through. Even so, I look forward to reading documents by persons with legible handwriting.

I've learned that reading letters aloud can be very helpful, particularly if the writer is that well educated. If people are not that familiar with the spelling of the English language (which, albeit, is fairly tricky), they tend to spell phonetically. Here are a few examples:

- "You will not be a tol surprised if I tell you I have been to school my last day."
- "... except* my love also dear Mary"
- The Statutes of Emory College, and the bye-laws of the faculty [1839]

Reading through diaries and letters, you never know what people will talk about. I suppose that's why Hattie writes this to Katie:

Kate I am writing this letter for your eye alone. I am taking it for granted no one else will ever see it or else I wouldn't put so much foolishness in it.

If George had realized that his diary would become the main voice for the antebellum Emory student, perhaps he would have explained this entry further:

I attended recitations this morning but gitting my ankle sprained by jumping out of the Chapel this morning so I did not go to recitation this evening.

___
*This should read accept.