[Vwoolf] missionary string bags

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

Ah Stuart – you never fail! Thanks. I have not come across the verb to net before. I assume it comes from the making of fishing nets.
In the weird way that the mind works, since airing this topic a bit back I keep now seeing people with string bags. Not all of them can be missikonaries!

Jeremy H

From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> On Behalf Of Stuart Clarke via Vwoolf
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2023 5:37 PM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] missionary string bags

I write under a several difficulties. Someone asked why missionaries should want string bags. Mark? Jeremy? I have finally managed to look at the book in question at the BL: "Recollections of a Sussex Parson [Edward Boys Ellman]". 
I write under a several difficulties. Someone asked why missionaries should want string bags. Mark? Jeremy?



I have finally managed to look at the book in question at the BL: "Recollections of a Sussex Parson [Edward Boys Ellman]". Not an easy business since the cyber attack: no public computers available; only old microfilm readers usable as the newer ones are computer-linked; couldn't order a MS. Ordering books has to be done manually - hadn't seen those forms for many a year!



Then I got the 1925 edn, whereas I suspect that McNeillie used the 1st (1912) edn. In any case, I don't have vol. 4 of the Essays to hand in London. In even more any case, I don't think he referenced this, er, reference.



I haven't gone over every page of the book, but I think VW has misled us (having read quickly &/or remembered poorly): Ellman's daughter, Maude Walker, writes in her Memoir at the beginning of the book - and, boy, does she go on and on about his last days (he died aged 90) - "When his eyes grew weary in the evenings, he played whist or patience, and sometimes netted string handbags to give to charity sales" (p. xxiii). At the beginning of the paragraph, she mentions that he wanted to build a Mission Church for the distant part of the parish (his church was in Berwick).



I hope you're satisfied!



Stuart


------ Original Message ------
From: "Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf" <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
To: "vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>" <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
Sent: Sunday, 15 Oct, 2023 At 9:59 AM
Subject: [Vwoolf] missionary string bags
I came across this Woolf reference in Patricia Moye’s detective novel Who Saw Her Die? (1970). “In the morning, Emmy went off to the Rue du Rivoli. Although, with her slender packet of travellers’ cheques, she could do no
I came across this Woolf reference in Patricia Moye’s detective novel Who Saw Her Die? (1970).

“In the morning, Emmy went off to the Rue du Rivoli. Although, with her slender packet of travellers’ cheques, she could do no more than lick the windows of the shops - as the French put it so vividly - still she was adamant that this was an admirable way to spend a couple of hours. ‘I don’t need to buy anything,’ she she explained to Henry. ‘I just look. It gives m e a whole new feeling about fashion. As Virginia Woolf said, it refreshes the eye.’”
Google located the following from “Taylors and Edgeworths” in The Common Reader:
“And so back and so forwards, he paces eternally the fields of Sussex until, grown to an extreme old age, there he sits in his Rectory thinking of Newman, thinking of Miss Biffen, and making - it is his great consolation - string bags for missionaries. And then? Go on looking. Nothing much happens. But the dim light is exquisitely refreshing to the eyes.”
It’s not a very satisfactory match. Is there a better Woolf source?
As is often the case, I learned something while searching; that “missionary bag” is a standard term. “Missionary string bag” less so; Google does give some hits, although the accompanying pictures are not of string bags.
Now that plastic carrier bags are frowned on or banned, the string bags I remember from the 1950s in the UK may make a modest come-back.
Jeremy H
Professor Emeritus
Department of Language and Literature
NTNU
7491 Trondheim
Norway
________________________________
_______________________________________________
Vwoolf mailing list
Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/vwoolf/attachments/20231214/aed332cd/attachment-0001.html>