Late-night-until-dawn parties historically were a way of flaunting wealth because the expense of candles.
Beeswax and spermaceti candles burned cleaner and brighter than cheap tallow, but they were expensive and often taxed at higher rates; even prosperous households limited their use except on grand occasions, precisely because “lighting a candle was tantamount to burning money”
I don’t presume to know the workload of folks in Jane Austen’s era, but today most people I know have 12 hours of obligations most days (and on the weekends it’s collapse-to-survive the upcoming week rehab). Like the author mentioned, an all-night party would “destroy” most of us for the next day. That’s probably the correlation? I don’t want to romanticize the past too much, but it seems like life was slower and partying through the night from time-to-time wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Dreamy.
Late-night-until-dawn parties historically were a way of flaunting wealth because the expense of candles.
Beeswax and spermaceti candles burned cleaner and brighter than cheap tallow, but they were expensive and often taxed at higher rates; even prosperous households limited their use except on grand occasions, precisely because “lighting a candle was tantamount to burning money”
I don’t presume to know the workload of folks in Jane Austen’s era, but today most people I know have 12 hours of obligations most days (and on the weekends it’s collapse-to-survive the upcoming week rehab). Like the author mentioned, an all-night party would “destroy” most of us for the next day. That’s probably the correlation? I don’t want to romanticize the past too much, but it seems like life was slower and partying through the night from time-to-time wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Dreamy.