For many years, my mother owned a little ceramic jug decorated with a picture of a cottage on one side and the words 'Be a little deaf and blind / Happiness you'll always find', on the other.
Such proverbial folk wisdom greatly appealed to my mother; though whether she applied this particular teaching in her own life - and whether, if she did, it brought her the promised reward of happiness - I'm not sure.
Anyway, my mother is dead now and the little painted jug made in Torquay is mine - as is the question of what to do with it ...
I'm pretty sure my sister would either throw it away or attempt to sell it on eBay; throwing things away and selling things on eBay is her speciality and the sign of a woman who not only sees a price label attached to everything, but is dead to the mysterious allure of objects [2].
I don't want the little jug to be thrown away or sold on eBay, however.
And so I suppose I'll keep it; even if I don't necessarily endorse a message that might have been written by the Japanese monkeys Mizaru and Kikazaru [3] and which was offered as pragmatic advice to new brides in the 18th-century when confronted by their husbands' little indiscretions [4] ...
Notes
[1] The Watcombe Pottery was originally established as the Watcombe Terra Cotta Clay Company in 1869 by G. J. Allen, after he discovered a
particularly fine red clay in the grounds of Watcombe House.
In 1901, the business was acquired by Hexter, Humpherson
and Co., who also owned the Aller Vale Pottery, and it began producing a wide range of pottery in the popular style associated with Torquay, including the motto wares, aimed at the
emerging tourist market.
Sadly, the Watcombe Pottery was forced to close its kilns for good in 1962.
[2] I have written on the allure of objects - and how this can make happy - in several posts; click here and here, for example.
[3] These were two of the Three Wise Monkeys, famous for avoiding evil thoughts and deeds in the Buddhist tradition; Mizaru saw no evil and Kikazaru heard no evil.
Interestingly, in the West we interpret their story very differently and reference the proverb in order to pass moral judgement on those who intentionally ignore wrongdoing, preferring instead to turn a blind eye, cop a deaf ear, or remain silent when the right thing to do is speak up.
For my post on Mizaru and Kikazaru, published back in November 2013, click here.
[4] See Jennie E. Batchelor, 'Be but a little deaf and blind ... and
happiness you'll surely find': Marriage in Eighteenth-Century Magazines
for Women', in After Marriage
in the Long Eighteenth Century: Literature, Law and Society, ed. Jenny DiPlacidi and Karl Leydecker, (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2018), pp. 107-127.
And see also chapter 3 of Batchelor's book The Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832) and
the Making of Literary History, (Edinburgh Univerity Press, 2022), pp. 112-113, where she discusses the case of one woman who wrote to the Lady's Magazine in 1774, seeking advice on how to deal with the discovery that her husband has a mistress.
Contrary to what she wishes to hear, the reader is told by the magazine's popular agony aunt, Mrs Grey (aka the Matron), that a (rather cynical) form of pragmatism is the best policy; neither seeing, hearing, nor speaking of any thing which may occasion marital discord. This is neither to condone the actions of her husband, nor exonerate him of wrongdoing. But it does recognise that it will not help matters to confront him, as roving husbands are never brought to heel by public reproach.
