Vox Meditantis

Tuesday, 29th November 1768

You must think me a very foolish creature, standing here before you in this great hall where men of substance conduct their affairs, and I – a girl scarce sixteen years old – permitted only by the charity of my father’s station amongst the Company. I ought not to speak at all, and yet here I am, my tongue loosened by some strange humour that I cannot quite account for, unless it be that I am already resigned to the poor figure I shall cut in the memory of all who know me.

Do you see that mark upon the oak panelling yonder, where some apprentice boy has scored his initials deep into the wood? I have looked upon it these three hours past, whilst the gentlemen have been about their business, and I have thought: there is his legacy, crude and unlovely, yet it shall outlast him. What mark do I leave? A blot upon my father’s copybook, I fear, and little else. For I am given to errors of judgement that no amount of instruction seems to remedy, and I possess a talent for rendering awkward that which ought to be simple.

You ask me – or perhaps it is my own contrary mind that asks – what device or contrivance I should be better off without, and why. It is a strange question, yet I believe I have an answer. There is a new manner of loom, you understand, that my father’s guild has lately seen demonstrated, a thing of such ingenious construction that it may do the work of three or four hands in the time it takes one man to thread the shuttle. The master weavers speak of it with great admiration, and say it shall bring prosperity to us all. Yet I confess I am filled with a sort of dread when I consider it.

It is not the machine itself that troubles me, though it is a fearsome thing to watch in motion, all wheels and levers moving in their appointed courses. No, it is rather that I see in it a means by which we may forget the value of what is wrought slowly, with care and patience. My own needlework is indifferent at best – I have the scar upon my thumb to prove how often I prick myself through inattention – but I know that each stitch, however ill-made, is mine own, and bears the mark of my hand. What shall we be when all our work is done by engines? What memory of ourselves shall we leave, save the tallies in a ledger?

I am sensible that I speak like one who fears her own obsolescence, which is perhaps nearer to the truth than I care to admit. For if a machine may supplant a weaver, how much more easily might a clever, biddable girl supplant such a one as I, who cannot seem to conduct herself with proper modesty and restraint? My mother says I think too much upon matters that do not concern me, and she is undoubtedly correct. Yet still the thought persists: when I am gone from this place, and these good gentlemen have no further cause to remark upon my father’s troublesome daughter, what trace shall remain? A scar upon the memory, perhaps, or a cautionary tale told to other restless girls who ought to know their place.

Forgive me. I have spoken too long already, and said nothing of consequence. That, too, shall be my legacy.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.