From The Last Mughal, by William Dalrymple:
"He [Sir Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe] was a notably fastidious man, with feelings so refined that he could not bear to see women eat cheese. Moreover he believed that if the fair sex insisted on eating oranges or mangoes, they should at least do so in the privacy of their own bathrooms."
Mangoes and oranges I can understand. But . . . cheese?
4 comments:
He didn't like drips... or crumbs... :-)
A thought occurs: I'm of the belief that modernism, in the Eng. speaking world, begins when the young Lytton Strachey, visiting the Stephen sisters (who will become Vanessa Bell & Virginia Woolf), sees a wet stain on Virginia's dress, and says, bluntly, "Semen?"
Nothing like that had ever happened before. It was a breathtaking moment, and the three of them knew it. We can see why Metcalfe wanted women to eat fruit in their bathrooms!!
He doesn't sound refined to me - he sounds creepy!
Must be the holes in the cheese. Too many of them will - paradoxically - make it very unholy.
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