Friday, September 11, 2009

A Warning to Non-Sewing Wives

Curiously, vague feelings against Lady Davy have remained in the collective folk memory of Penzance. . . . I was told on several occasions that the large stone statue erected to (chemist Sir Humphrey) Davy, dominating Market Street, showed his frock coat with a missing button "because Lady Davy was a bad wife and would never sew it back on."

--Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder.

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