"Diary of a Provincial Lady"

[fiefoe]

The copy in my hand is the 1982 Academy Chicago Edition, and it's a fine sample of bookmaking. The cover art is abstract floral figures in black and white, harmonious with the elegant AT Gallia font used for the title text. (The good folks at mefi are, not very surprisingly, very good with fonts.) The margins are generous, invoking the sense of reading an actual diary.

<being a parent>

• Robin says, whilst the friend is out of hearing: " It's been nice for us, taking out Williams, hasn't it?" Hastily express appreciation of this privilege. ...after dinner, I sit in hotel lounge with several other mothers and we all talk about our boys in tones of disparagement, and about one another's boys with great enthusiasm.
• (Query: Are modern children going to revolt against being modern, and if so, what form will reaction of modern parents take?)
• Vicky... enquires abruptly whether, if she died, I should cry? I reply in the affirmative. But, she says, should I cry really hard. Should I roar and scream? Decline to commit myself to any such extravagant demonstrations, at which Vicky displays a tendency to hurt astonishment.
  
• Compromise on Grimm's Fairy Tales, although slightly uneasy as to their being in accordance with best modern ideals. Both children take immense interest in story of highly undesirable Person who wins fortune, fame, and beautiful Princess by means of lies, violence, and treachery.
• (Robin suggests a motor tour:)  Feel that it would be unendurable to refuse this trustful request.
  

<indignities & deflation>

• Robert, this morning, complains of insufficient breakfast. Cannot feel that porridge, scrambled eggs, toast, marmalade, scones, brown bread, and coffee give adequate grounds for this, but admit that porridge is slightly burnt. How impossible ever to encounter burnt porridge without vivid recollections of Jane Eyre at Lowood School, say I parenthetically! This literary allusion not a success.
• She asks Why I do not go there too, and likens me to piece of chewed string, which I feel to be entirely inappropriate and rather offensive figure of speech, though perhaps kindly meant.
• Feel that, if she wishes to discourage further experiments on my part, this observation could scarcely be improved upon.
• As we take our leave with customary graceful speeches, clasp of handbag unfortunately gives way, and piece of candy-sugar falls, with incredible noise and violence, on to the parquet, and is pursued with officious zeal and determination by all present except myself. <>Very, very difficult moment....
• Before I can reply, she does so for me, and says that she knows just how I feel. Weak as a rat, legs like cotton-wool, no spine whatever, and head like a boiled owl. Am depressed by this diagnosis, and begin to feel that it must be correct.