Keeping warm in winter

[several_bees]

From Oliver Goldsmith's letters:A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, Sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove with coals in it, which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats; and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe.
And from Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

Comments

[amuchmoreexotic]

I thought those extracts were very oblique dirty jokes. She lights his pipe in her stove?

[several_bees]

Well, the Grose extract is explicitly kind-of a dirty joke, but one predicated on the foot-stoves genuinely existing and being widely used. I don't think the other is - if anything, "burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer" seems meant to imply that the footstove-user will not attempt to inflame anyone's lust unduly. And if there was a little portable stove around, then surely you would actually use it to light any pipes that need lighting?

(Though the essay on foot-stoves in art does suggest that they're sometimes used to symbolise general lasciviousness, as they warm the skirts from within.)

The important point, however, is: people used to have foot-stoves that they carried around with them and put under their skirts when they sat down!

[bateleur]

With modern technology we can surely do better than this now? Some kind of miniature heater you can clip to the bottom edge of a skirt, perhaps. With a little themostat so it keeps your legs at whatever temperature you prefer. And wireless internet, so it can tweet updates about how cold your legs are.

Actually on second thoughts maybe not. Some bright spark at Sony would probably add a camera.

[taimatsu]

You could have fluffy Ugg-style boots which were actually electric blankets. (But I don't like Ugg-style boots, so that wouldn't wok for me.)

[huskyteer]

I haven't worn tights since I left the Air Cadets. I'd rather my legs actually froze off than subject them to those horrors again.

[several_bees]

I'm like that about trousers (well, unless you count pyjama pants) - hate the things, feel extremely uncomfortable in them, don't even own any. So I need something to put under skirts; I just haven't quite managed to find anything that doesn't make me a bit itchy. Tights work quite well because they are bright and cheerful, and also I wasn't forced to wear them as a small child...