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Jane Eyre vocabulary
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rushlight
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► definition
Definition:a type of candle or miniature torch formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease. For several centuries [they] were a common source of artificial light for poor people throughout the British Isles. They were extremely inexpensive to make. English essayist William Cobbett wrote, "[it] costs almost nothing to produce and was believed to give a better light than some poorly dipped candles."text from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike---rushes were cut and soaked in water. They were then peeled, leaving lengths of pith partially supported by threads of the skin which were not stripped off. These sticks of pith were placed in the sun to bleach and to dry, and after they were thoroughly dry they were dipped in scalding grease, which was saved from cooking operations or was otherwise acquired for the purpose. A reed two or three feet long held in the splinter-holder would burn for about an hour. Thus it is seen that man was beginning to progress in the development of artificial light.M. Luckiesh. Artificial Light, Its Influence upon Civilization. (1920)
► uses
Uses:
And you approach this mighty mystery, and hold forth in your puny hands your potent "specific" for its cure. With your farthing rushlight you seek to illuminate the illimitable caverns of the infinite.
Walter Whitman. Franklin Evans or The Inebriate. (1829)
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day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room.
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
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“I’ll go to the kitchen,” says he, “an’ light a rish,” says he.
Humours of Irish Life: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Billy Malowney's Taste of Love and Glory
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we went along Cheapside and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out, opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall.
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)
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