This interesting use of vocabulary emerges in one of
Anne's first long speeches to poor Matthew as he takes her back to his home. In it she
talks about her life in the asylum with other orphans and we have our first indication
about her great powers of imagination as she talks about the kind of games she played
when she thought about the other orphans with her. Note what she
says:
It was
pretty interesting to imagine things about them--to imagine that perhaps the girl who
sat next to you was really the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from
her parents in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I used to
lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because I didn't have time in the
day.
A "belted earl" refers
historically to the fact that in England, up to the seventeenth century an earl was
given that position and status symbolically by a sword that was girded around his waist.
A "belted earl" is therefore an earl whose family received that honour from a great time
ago, and thus "better" or "superior" to other, more recent, unbelted earls who had not
received their honour in the same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment