![]() ![]() ![]() She confides, “In no time I am sure James and I will have learned all these Rules. Covering both the usual (eating) and the quaint (the polite way to dispatch fleas, lice and ticks on oneself and others), the rules are comically illustrated as paintings on canvas, presumably done by Charlotte herself. Indeed, Cullen adapts the historical book Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation for the 10 proscriptions that Charlotte lists out. Charlotte’s first missive thanks Washington for sending an etiquette book she pledges to copy it out, just as Washington had done as a boy. Her polite, guileless accounts belie the household mayhem that Carpenter’s lively ink-and-wash illustrations depict. ![]() These details inspire Cullen’s story of three rambunctious siblings: Charlotte, James and Baby John Stuart.Ĭharlotte, a budding artist herself, writes three letters to “Mr. Gilbert Stuart, George Washington’s portraitist, had 12 children and fretted about his famous subject’s unsmiling mien. ![]()
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