Elizabeth Carter in Canterbury - 9 February, 1742
from Elizabeth Carter, 1717–1806. An Edition of Some Unpublished Letters, pages 117-118:
If my periods run but half so musically as the notes of Miss Lynch’s Spinet you have a very a very agreable [sic] Letter even if it should contain nothing but words. I admire your heroic fortitude that could remain so calm & unconcerned amidst the dangers of an Inundation, but must insist on my being the greater philosopher who under the Influence of the most charming Sounds that ever inchanted mortal … more >>
Elizabeth Carter, and Gwen Hampshire (ed.), Elizabeth Carter, 1717–1806. An Edition of Some Unpublished Letters (Newark, Delaware, 2005), p. 117-118. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1674731028164 accessed: 25 April, 2024
Listeners
Listening to
hide composers| unspecified pieces for spinet (small harpsichord) | performed by Miss Sarah Lynch |
Experience Information
| Date/Time | 9 February, 1742 |
| Medium | live |
| Listening Environment | in private, indoors, solitary |
Notes
The listening experience is found in a letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Underdown, dated 9 February November 1742. Elizabeth Carter was a member of the Bluestockings Society, educated women who met and exchanged letters about a wide variety of intellectual interests. The origin of the term may reference a gentleman who participated in the group wearing blue stockings, not the formal black stockings that convention required. He was welcomed none the less, suggesting a spirit of intellectual enquiry and companionship that changed by the Victorian era when ‘Bluestocking’ became a derogatory term directed at women interested in intellectual pursuits.