History of Brighthelmston; or, Brighton as I View it and Others Knew It: With a Chronological Table of Local EventsErredge, John Ackerson
History
History of Brighthelmston; or, Brighton as I View it and Others Knew It: With a Chronological Table of Local Events
Erredge, John Ackerson
Brighton (England) -- History
Hone, in The Year Book, date, Sept. 22, 1821, says, “I saw this woman
to-day in her bed, to which she is confined from having lost the use of
her limbs. She has even now, old and withered as she is, a fine
character of countenance, and I should judge, from her present
appearance, must have had a fine though perhaps masculine style of head
when young. I have seen many a woman, at the age of sixty or seventy
look older than she does under the load of 106 years of human life. Her
checks are round, and seem firm, though ploughed with many a small
wrinkle. Her eyes, though the sight is gone, are large and well formed.
As soon as it was announced that somebody had come to see her, she broke
the silence of her solitary thoughts and spoke. She began in a
complaining tone, as if the remains of a strong and restless spirit were
impatient of the prison of a decaying and weak body. ‘Other people die
and I cannot,’ she said. Upon exciting the recollection of her former
days, her energy seemed roused, and she spoke with emphasis. Her voice
was strong for an old person, and I could easily believe her when, upon
being asked if her sex was not in danger of being discovered by her
voice, she replied that she always had a strong and manly voice. She
appeared to take a pride in having kept her secret, declaring that she
told it to no man, woman, or child, during the time she was in the army;
‘for you know, Sir, a drunken man and a child always tell the truth. But
I told my secret to the ground. I dug a hole that would hold a gallon,
and whispered it there.’ While I was with her the flies annoyed her
extremely: she drove them away with a fan, and said they seemed to smell
her out as one that was going to the grave. She showed me a wound she
had received in her elbow by a bayonet. She lamented the error of her
former ways, but excused it by saying, ‘when you are at Rome, you must do
as Rome does.’ When she could not distinctly hear what was said, she
raised herself in the bed and thrust her head forward with impatient
energy. She said, when the King, George IV,—saw her, he called her ‘a
jolly old fellow.’ Though blind, she could discern a glimmering light,
and I was told would frequently state the time of day by the effect of
light.”
Phœbe had nine children, but none of them attained any age except the
eldest son, who was a sailor, but she had neither seen nor heard of him
for many years prior to her decease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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