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"anything but your prayers" source
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: General Topics:
"anything but your prayers" source
Author: Timsta
Wednesday, 08 January 2003 - 02:25 pm |        | This quote appears in the novel "The Poacher" by Captain Frederick Marryat (probably best known as the author of "Masterman Ready" and "The Children of the New Forest").
It was published in 1841.
The full text can be found here:
http://www.athelstane.co.uk/marryat/poacher/poacher.htm
Murder, an Irish regiment, and throwing a drunken man off a bridge. Do I get admitted to the Great Pantheon of Ripper Researchers now, or is this a known fact already?
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Timsta
Wednesday, 08 January 2003 - 02:44 pm | | Hi all.
http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/bloctr01.htm states:
"Through a different source, but from the same provenance, the Beinecke has also just acquired the holograph manuscript of a large portion of an unpublished early draft of Frederick Marryat’s Joseph Rushbrook; or, The poacher, serialized in The era from December 1840 to May 1841 and published in book form in 1841."
http://www.earlyrepublic.net/jm980804.htm states:
"Marryat began to write fiction after he retired from the British Navy in 1830, and wrote Masterman Ready, of which the following is a sample, in 1841. Frank Luther Mott's Golden Multitudes (p318-9) puts it in the low end of the 10 or so most popular books in the U.S. in 1842, and the same goes for his Mr. Midshipman Easy in 1836, and Peter Simple in 1837. Ronald and Mary Zboray's "Reading and Everyday Life in Antebellum Boston: The Diary of Daniel F. and Mary D. Child" makes note of Marryat's "The Poacher" -- a serialized novel, it would appear, that ran in Robert's Magazine in 1841 (Mott, p76ff discusses the cheap publishing of novels in magazines)."
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Dan Norder
Wednesday, 08 January 2003 - 03:21 pm | | Interesting stuff... I always like learning more about where words and phrases derived from.
So obviously J. Michael Strazcinsky's (sp? the Babylon 5 guy) theory that the killer had to be a preacher because of that statement falls to pieces. Not that it wasn't already pretty splintered and silly to begin with.
Dan
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Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 10 January 2003 - 10:28 am | | Hi Timsta:
This is a very interesting find. Of course "The Poacher" by Captain Frederick Marryat may not be the ultimate source of this saying. I have the feeling that it might have appeared earlier in some other printed work or be simply a common saying of the era. Nevertheless, if the person with Elizabeth Stride did say "You would say anything but your prayers."--as witnessed by William Marshall and that person was the Ripper it is interesting to ponder whether they were either a sailor or a devourer of nautical fiction. It's like the article I wrote for Ripperologist in which I pointed out that Saucy Jack was a successful American privateer during the War of 1812 so does the use of the term "Saucy Jack" on the postcard received October 1, 1888 by the Central News Agency have anything to do with that, or is it just coincidence? We may never know the answer to some of these questions.
The use of the name "Jack" to indicate a sailor of course is age-old, with the terms "Jolly Jack the Sailor" and "Jack Tar" having usage that must stretch back centuries and certainly were well used in the Victorian era and in 1888 specifically.
Interestingly there is another e-text by Marryat that is on the net, his novel Mr. Midshipman Easy. While I couldn't find "You would say anything but your prayers" in this work, it would seem that "anything" and "Jack" are perhaps the two commonest words in this work by Marryat, the protagonist of the book being Midshipman Jack Easy. The construction "anything but" also occurs on more than a few occasions.
So for example we find--
----
"Give us your hand, Ned," said Jack Easy.
----
Jack was anything but a tyrant and was much beloved by all in the ship.
----
". . . I cannot but help feeling how careful we should be, how we inculcate anything like abstract and philosophical ideas to youth."
----
"Call it what you please," replied Jack, "only pray desire the servants to give me something to eat. Dry toast or muffins--anything will do, but I should prefer coffee."
----
If anything could add to the indignation of the boatswain, it was to find that his trousers had come on board before him.
----
Mr Easy. . . was sent for in the cabin, to hear if he had anything to offer in extenuation of his offence. Jack made an oration, which lasted more than half an hour. . . .
----
The boats pulled in-shore, and then coasted for three hours without seeing anything: the night was fine overhead, but there was no moon.
----
The cutter's crew knew very well that Jack was acting contrary to orders, but anything was to them a change from the monotony of a man-of-war, and they, as well as Mesty, highly approved of a holiday.
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. . . . they had had nothing but beans to eat during the whole day, which was anything but agreeable. . . .
----
The Spanish captain felt his situation anything but pleasant.
----
"Yes, sar, he no got arms, and he see dat me have--but suppose he find arms he never dare do anything--I know de man."
----
Jack and Mesty went to bed, and as a precaution against the Spaniard, which was hardly necessary, Mesty locked the cabin door but Mesty never forgot anything.
----
Moreover, Mesty did not think it prudent to leave the vessel a mile from the Harpy with only two on
board; besides, as Jack said, he had had no dinner, and was not quite sure that he should find anything to eat when he went into the midshipmen's berth;
----
. . . . the gale still continued its violence, and there was anything but comfort onboard,
----
Last but not least--
"That's no proof of anything, Jack. . . ."
----
And what about this one to tease us?
"Well, Jack, my boy, have you any long story ready for me?" inquired the Governor.
"Yes, sir," replied Jack, "I have one or two very good ones." !!!!!!
.
.
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Author: Timsta
Friday, 10 January 2003 - 12:04 pm | | Hi Chris:
Yeah, I wasn't particularly claiming Marryat to be the ur-source, although what I find interesting is that there are no other references to this phrase on the Internet *except* in the context of JtR. If this had been a common phrase in the 19th century (or earlier) I would expect it to appear somewhere.
Therefore I think there's a chance that this novel might be the ur-source (is there a philologist in the house? how do we check such things?) and also an outside chance that Marshall's guy may have encountered this phrase in Marryat's work.
What do we know about Robert's Magazine? I couldn't find any reference to it on the net. And does 'The era' above mean 'The Era' (a magazine) or simply 'the period of time'?
I think in any case this demolishes all the "Marshall's guy must have been a man of the clergy" ideas.
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 10 January 2003 - 08:52 pm | | Hi, Timsta et al.:
Some other quotes from Marryat that may prove of interest if only to illustrate the times, attitutes, customs etc., from another of his sea novels, Poor Jack--
".... Virginia, my love, don't spit - that's not genteel. It's only sailors and Yankees who spit."
----
Actually this novel, Poor Jack, demonstrates that in this tale of childhood of Marryat's not saying prayers was one of its themes (apparently in contrast to others of his works which talk about the beneficial effects of prayer):
As the doctor and I went down, my mother continued the song--
"'And then I met a little man,
Couldn't say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg
And sent him downstairs.'"
----
And my mother used to take Virginia on her knee, and make her say her prayers every night; but she never did so to me: and I used to hear what Virginia said, and then go into a corner and repeat it to myself. I could not imagine why
Virginia should be taught to pray, and that I should not.
----
I tried to say what prayers I had learnt by hearing my sister say them; but my teeth chattered, and I could only think them.
----
I hurried home rattling the silver in my pocket, and opening the door softly, I crept to bed. Did I say my prayers that night? No!!
More food for thought? 
All the best
Chris |
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