Small Beef Brain Farts

Things to keep in mind:

Dracula has taken Jon's means of communication. I believe this is punishment for his attempts to communicate last entry. drac probably did it whilst setting Jon's bed, an established thing that dracula does (which he likely did use as an excuse to be in Jon's room).

also, those travel and train memoranda were totally intended as a gift for Jon's beloved train fiend. drac either took them to rub salt in the wound, or because he feared Jon would use it to figure his own way home.

so to start off, theres a little bit of dodginess on stoker's part in that dracula's henchmen are all romani. it would be nice if this could be explained away in text as dracula taking advantage of them and co-ercing them in a similar way that is happening with jon, but sadly that does not seem to be the case here.

anyway, dracula does the whole carrot and stick routine here with the letters, acting all sweet before punishing jon for breaking the implied rules about communication. classic abuse tactics there. its interesting to me, in the early parts, that much of the horror is in the control drac has over the mundane parts of all this, like, much of what drac does with the isolation and control of communication is all stuff that a mortal, human abuser would do. i don't know if abuse like this was a named concept in the victorian times, but it certainly was a known evil, given that our villain here is using such techniques and our heroes win the day partially by having a healthy, stable and mutual relationships with each other (for the most part. i'll get into it when that becomes more relevant).

Honestly couldnt come up with anything much intelligent to say about Dr. Medical Malpractice himself's introduction other than point out the fact that he uses a phonograph, which is a very recent invention for the setting of Dracula. He's the representation of the forwards march of science and technology and the back turned on tradition and religion at first. Other than that all i have is "what the fuck, jack, fucking hell. Medical malpractice is not a condoned coping mechanism for having your feelings rebuffed!" I can defibately see why his asylum is a privately owned one. That shit would NOT have flown in the publicly owned asylums even back then, everyone was still up in arms about Bedlam! "Under what circumstances is it ok to perform medical malpractice?" Is not a question i wanna be hearing from a man in charge of caring for members of a vulnerable population.

This is one instance where its obvious that an entry/correspondance has been "excluded for irrelavence". Or in other words, we know mina wrote to lucy between the last lucy letter and know but we dont learn what she wrote.

Anyway lucy feels bad at having to turn people down. Not because she wants to be with them, but because she dislikes dissappointing people. Understandable. If Dr. Medical Malpractice himself came to me in a nervouse wreck and accidentally sat on his own hat before proposing to me, i too would have a hard time saying know and tbh i hate the guy (he is so interesting but he's like a particularly problematic plankton to me.)

I love that lucy aknowladges that mina and jonathan trust each other with everything, and i love that that is what lucy hopes for with arthur. Mina out here being a fantastic role model for lucy. Also lucy is 19. When i first read this book, i was 14 and thought she was so mature. I am now older than lucy will have ever gotten to have been and, yeah, she's a little naive from being sheltered and very clearly still young, she still gives off an impression of being remarkably mature to me, especially in hiw she handles the suitor squad without leading any of them on. (Which honestly just makes her treatment from her mother even worse in my eyes.)

Also, we get our first meeting of Mr. Quincey P. Morris. The American from Texas. Im not entirely sure if Quincey is playing up an accent to amuse Lucy, or if he's happy talking like that to Lucy because she doesnt ridicule him for his accent. Im leaning towards the latter because i know why recieved pronunciation exists.