Topical Guide 129
Mark Dorset
Security Blanket, Muff as
Fashion Statement, Muff as
Sexual Euphemism, Muff as
Instrument of Restraint or Torture, Muff as
“Hello, Peter,” Clarissa said, so softly that when I responded I spoke in a whisper.
“Hello, Clarissa,” I said. I held my hand out. To be honest, I didn’t just hold my hand out, I reached for her hand. I didn’t intend to shake it; I wanted to hold it. She hesitated for the briefest instant, and then she gave her right hand to me. I held it between both of mine. She kept her left hand on the muff.Little Follies, “The Girl with the White Fur Muff”
’TWAS not for some calm blessing to receive,
Thou didst thy polish’d hands in shagg’d furs weave;
It were no blessing thus obtain’d;
Thou rather wouldst a curse have gain’d,
Than let thy warm driven snow be ever stain’d.
Not that you feared the discolouring cold
Might alchemize their silver into gold;
Nor could your ten white nuns so sin
That you should thus penance them in,
Each in her coarse hair smock of discipline.
Nor hero-like, who on their crest still wore
A lion, panther, leopard, or a boar,
To look their enemies in their hearse;
Thou wouldst thy hand should deeper pierce,
And, in its softness rough, appear more fierce.
No, no, Lucasta, destiny decreed
That beasts to thee a sacrifice should bleed,
And strip themselves to make you gay;
For ne’er yet herald did display
A coat where sables upon ermine lay.
This for lay-lovers, that must stand at door,
Salute the threshold, and admire no more:
But I, in my invention tough,
Rate not this outward bliss enough,
But still contemplate must the hidden muff.Richard Lovelace, “Her Muff”
Laura Engel has argued for the symbolic status of the muff in daily promenades and society portraits, its importance as a luxury accessory vying with the sexual innuendos its furry, hand-warming interior invited. The larger the muff, the trendier and dearer, but also the more suggestive of an inelegant double-entendre. This sexual suggestiveness is also present in Mary Robinson’s seemingly demure portrait by George Romney (1781), where her small muff is centered below her sheathed bosom and her modestly hidden hands suggest another story.
Elizabeth Fay, “Framing Romantic Dress: Mary Robinson, Princess Caroline and the Sex/Text,” in Romantic Circles: A Refereed Scholarly Website Devoted to the Study of Romantic-Period Literature and Culture
For the first few weeks after my arrival at the sanatorium, I was cared for by two attendants, one by day and one by night. I was still helpless, being unable to put my feet out of bed, much less upon the floor, and it was necessary that I be continually watched lest an impulse to walk should seize me. After a month or six weeks, however, I grew stronger, and from that time only one person was assigned to care for me. He was with me all day, and slept at night in the same room.
The earliest possible dismissal of one of my two attendants was expedient for the family purse; but such are the deficiencies in the prevailing treatment of the insane that relief in one direction often occasions evil in another. No sooner was the expense thus reduced than I was subjected to a detestable form of restraint which amounted to torture. To guard me at night while the remaining attendant slept, my hands were imprisoned in what is known as a “muff.” A muff, innocent enough to the eyes of those who have never worn one, is in reality a relic of the Inquisition. It is an instrument of restraint which has been in use for centuries and even in many of our public and private institutions is still in use. The muff I wore was made of canvas, and differed in construction from a muff designed for the hands of fashion only in the inner partition, also of canvas, which separated my hands, but allowed them to overlap. At either end was a strap which buckled tightly around the wrist and was locked.
The assistant physician, when he announced to me that I was to be subjected at night to this restraint, broke the news gently—so gently that I did not then know, nor did I guess for several months, why this thing was done to me. And thus it was that I drew deductions of my own which added not a little to my torture.Clifford Whittingham Beers, A Mind That Found Itself: An Autobiography (1908)
Advice, Bad
“Do you know the answer?”
I didn’t even know the question. I had been so firmly in the grip of my fears that I hadn’t even noticed what was going on. I said, “Uh, well—”
Some tiny movement caught my eye. Maybe Spike hadn’t done anything more than move her hand, but I saw it, and glanced ever so briefly at her desk. I saw, on a piece of paper, where her hand rested, the number 54. Another tiny movement caught my eye. On a piece of paper on Veronica’s desk I saw the number 58. I was on the horns of a dilemma, but not for long. I didn’t want to do anything that was going to offend Spike, so I decided on that basis alone to take the answer that she offered.
“—fifty-four,” I said. I tossed it off as if it had been nothing.
Mrs. Graham looked at me for just long enough before she spoke so that I could tell, though no one else probably could have, that she knew how I had gotten the answer.
“No, Peter,” she said. “That’s not right. Seven times eight is fifty-six.”
I blushed. “Oh! That’s right,” I said. “I guess I just forgot.”
Without turning around, Spike shrugged her shoulders and covered the number she had written. Veronica looked genuinely puzzled.Little Follies, “The Girl with the White Fur Muff”
[more to come on Thursday, November 11, 2021]
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