democratic privilege and the queen's bladder

Above © Roy R. Behrens, Revisiting Thomas Eakins [detail], 2021.

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Muriel Spark, Momento Mori. New York: Penguin Books, 1961—

The real rise of democracy in the British Isles occurred in Scotland by means of Queen Victoria’s bladder…When she went to stay at Balmoral in her latter years a number of privies were caused to be built at the backs of little cottages, which had not previously possessed privies. This was to enable the Queen to go on her morning drive round the countryside in comfort, and to descend from her carriage from time to time, ostensibly to visit the humble cottagers in their dwellings. Eventually, word went round that Queen Victoria was exceedingly democratic. Of course it was due to her little weakness. But everyone copied the Queen and the idea spread, and now you see we have a great democracy.

Privy aperture: Set right down I'll mark 'er 'round

Roy R. Behrens, front cover, Journal of Creative Behavior (1976)

Buck Johnson, quoted in Remar Sutton and Mary Abbott Waite, eds., The Common Ground Book: A Circle of Friends. Latham NY: British American Publishing, 1992, p. 272—

Cousin Sally wanted an air conditioner, so she went into Metter [Georgia] to buy one, and they said: "Miss Sally, what size you want?"

She said, "I don't know."

They said, "Well how many BTUs do you want?"

She said, "I don't know a thing in the world about BTUs. All I know is I want an air conditioner with enough BTUs to cool a b-u-t-t as big as a t-u-b." She was really large.

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Rockwell Kent in It’s Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1955, p. 177—

…I laughed when he [Mr. Young, an old carpenter who worked with him in Maine] told me of “the big fat lady over on the main” for whom he was building a privy. “Now you be sure and make it big enough,” sez she. Said Mr. Young: “Lady, you set right down there and I’ll mark her ‘round.”

Roy R. Behrens, rear cover, Journal of Creative Behavior (1976)

No One Is A Continent, Not Even Queen Victoria

This is from Scottish author Muriel Spark in her Momento Mori (New York: Macmillan, 1959)—

The real rise of democracy in the British Isles occurred in Scotland by means of Queen Victoria's [weakness of the] bladder… When she went to stay at Balmoral in her latter years a number of privies were caused to be built at the back of little cottages which had not previously possessed privies. This was to enable the Queen to go on her morning drive round the countryside in comfort, and to descend from her carriage from time to time, ostensibly to visit the humble cottagers in their dwellings. Eventually, word went round that Queen Victoria was exceedingly democratic. Of course it was all due to her little weakness. But everyone copied the Queen and the idea spread, and now you see we have a great democracy.

Spot Check

Here, an especially curious note from Henry Miller, To Paint Is To Love Again. New York: Grossman, 1968, p. 7. See also Miller's thoughts about book design at A Tribute to Merle Armitage—

What is more intriguing than a spot on the bathroom floor which, as you sit emptying your bowels, assumes a hundred different forms, figures, shapes? Often I found myself on my knees studying a stain on the floor—studying it to detect all that was hidden at first sight.

Apertures

Above A WPA-era government poster in favor of sanitary outhouses. Poster design by John Buczak, c1940. The brief passage that follows is from a memoir by American psychologist Roger G. Barker, recalling his childhood in Pover, Iowa, in Gardner Lindzey, ed., A History of Psychology in Autobiography. Vol VIII. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1989, p. 4—

We had a horse and buggy, cow, chickens, apple trees, a walnut grove, a superior privy with three seats of different heights and sizes of apertures.