guardianship, she did not move into his Berkshire home to begin work as a maid nor did she remain under his supervision. Instead, Day placed her in some discreet lodgings rented from a widow in the labyrinth of courtyards off Chancery Lane, conveniently at the heart of London’s legal district and just a few minutes’walk from the rooms that he shared with Bicknell. Beyond the attentions of the widow, it seems unlikely that Ann had a chaperone. Then even though he had flouted the Foundling Hospital’s regulations, Day brazenly attended the next meeting of the charity’s general committee—its central management body—on August 30 when he made a generous donation of £50 (about £7,500 or $12,000 today) and was duly elected a governor. Whether he viewed this donation as fair payment for the orphan he had acquired or believed that becoming a governor placed him above suspicion is unknown. Having salved his conscience—or covered his tracks—Day could now begin to groom his future wife.
Lessons started immediately. Neglecting his tedious law studies, Day applied himself with enthusiasm to the far more exciting business of playing tutor to his young captive. They had grown up in completely different worlds. She had been born into poverty, marked with the stain of illegitimacy and schooled to work for her living in austere and lowly surroundings. He had been born into riches, brought up to a life of privilege and taught to expect everything that he desired. Yet he had every confidence that he could transform his illiterate and uncultured orphan into the cleverand compliant woman he would one day marry. With his well-worn copy of Rousseau’s Émile in hand, Day believed that he could teach her to become his equal in intelligence, to bear every physical hardship he could himself endure and to accept unquestioningly his ideological outlook. He would train her to like the same things he liked, to despise the things he despised and even to love his pitted face, straggly hair and rounded shoulders, to give birth to his children and to live with him in perfect harmony in his “secret glade.”
Thomas Day was not the first to dream of creating an ideal woman—and he would not be the last. Writers, artists and musicians have always been drawn to the fantasy of bringing to life a supreme being—usually a woman. One of the oldest and certainly the most influential such transformations was described by the Roman poet Ovid in the first decade AD retelling the myth of Pygmalion in his Metamorphoses. In Ovid’s vivid and erotic tale the sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with the marble statue of a beautiful woman he has carved. Appalled, like Day, by the wicked ways of women, Pygmalion beseeches Venus to bring to life his “ivory girl.” The goddess grants his wish, and Pygmalion is overjoyed to find that the cold marble he has sculpted turns to flesh beneath his touch and the statue steps down from her pedestal into his arms. Nine months later their union produces a daughter.
With its simple but timeless theme, the Pygmalion story has been reworked and reimagined again and again over the ensuing centuries. Probably the best-known and best-loved version, George Bernard Shaw’s bittersweet comedy Pygmalion tells the tale of the phonetics expert Professor Henry Higgins, who accepts a wager to transform the Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle into a fashionable woman of the world. By training Eliza to speak with a refined accent, teaching her drawing room manners and dressing her in fine clothes, Higgins wins his bet: Eliza hoodwinks London society into believing that she is a duchess. But Shaw’s play, first staged in 1913, subverts the original myth’s happy ending. The feisty Eliza ultimately resists the fate of Ovid’s statue and refuses to fall in love with her creator. Instead, to Higgins’s horror, she rebels against his autocratic arrogance and demands to direct her own destiny; in the finalscene she leaves him to
Lessons started immediately. Neglecting his tedious law studies, Day applied himself with enthusiasm to the far more exciting business of playing tutor to his young captive. They had grown up in completely different worlds. She had been born into poverty, marked with the stain of illegitimacy and schooled to work for her living in austere and lowly surroundings. He had been born into riches, brought up to a life of privilege and taught to expect everything that he desired. Yet he had every confidence that he could transform his illiterate and uncultured orphan into the cleverand compliant woman he would one day marry. With his well-worn copy of Rousseau’s Émile in hand, Day believed that he could teach her to become his equal in intelligence, to bear every physical hardship he could himself endure and to accept unquestioningly his ideological outlook. He would train her to like the same things he liked, to despise the things he despised and even to love his pitted face, straggly hair and rounded shoulders, to give birth to his children and to live with him in perfect harmony in his “secret glade.”
Thomas Day was not the first to dream of creating an ideal woman—and he would not be the last. Writers, artists and musicians have always been drawn to the fantasy of bringing to life a supreme being—usually a woman. One of the oldest and certainly the most influential such transformations was described by the Roman poet Ovid in the first decade AD retelling the myth of Pygmalion in his Metamorphoses. In Ovid’s vivid and erotic tale the sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with the marble statue of a beautiful woman he has carved. Appalled, like Day, by the wicked ways of women, Pygmalion beseeches Venus to bring to life his “ivory girl.” The goddess grants his wish, and Pygmalion is overjoyed to find that the cold marble he has sculpted turns to flesh beneath his touch and the statue steps down from her pedestal into his arms. Nine months later their union produces a daughter.
With its simple but timeless theme, the Pygmalion story has been reworked and reimagined again and again over the ensuing centuries. Probably the best-known and best-loved version, George Bernard Shaw’s bittersweet comedy Pygmalion tells the tale of the phonetics expert Professor Henry Higgins, who accepts a wager to transform the Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle into a fashionable woman of the world. By training Eliza to speak with a refined accent, teaching her drawing room manners and dressing her in fine clothes, Higgins wins his bet: Eliza hoodwinks London society into believing that she is a duchess. But Shaw’s play, first staged in 1913, subverts the original myth’s happy ending. The feisty Eliza ultimately resists the fate of Ovid’s statue and refuses to fall in love with her creator. Instead, to Higgins’s horror, she rebels against his autocratic arrogance and demands to direct her own destiny; in the finalscene she leaves him to
Similar Books
