In This Issue

• Trust Your Mother
• Colonel Mavers
• Fiction: The Maniac
• Pancakes for Mom
• Floral Sentiments, or, What do the Flowers Say?

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Trust Your Mother

Trust your mother, little one.
In life's morning, just begun,
You will find some grief, some fears;
Which perhaps may cause you tears;
But a mother's kiss can heal
Many griefs that children feel.
Trust your mother—seek to prove
Grateful for her thoughtful love.

Trust your mother, noble youth,
Turn not from the paths of truth;
In temptations evil hour
Seek her ere it gains new power.
She will never guide you wrong;
Faith in her will make you strong;
Trust your mother, aim to prove
Worthy of her fondest love.

Trust your mother, maiden fair;
Love will guide your steps with care;
Let no cloud e'er come between—
Let no shadow e'er be seen
Hiding from your mother's heart
What may prove a poisoned dart;
Trust your mother, seek to prove
Worthy of her faithful love.

Trust your mother to the end,
She will prove your constant friend;
If ‘tis gladness wings the hour,
Share with her the joyful shower;
Or if sorrow should oppress,
She will smile and she will bless.
Oh! Be trustful, loving, true,
That she may confide in you!

Source: The Cottage Hearth, February 1875

Please join me in extending a hearty welcome back to our dear Colonel Mavers, who has returned from the Dr. I. P. Freeley Sanitorium feeling, well, fresh as a daisy.

Colonel Mavers On...

The Spider

Ladies and Gentlemen: The spider is the most knowing, cunning and sagacious of the whole insect tribe. He gets his living by artifice, like many men, and well does he contrive. He spreads his net for foolish flies, and he catches ‘em. He spins and weaves; but how he draws so fine, and yet so strong, a thread, is many miles beyond my comprehension. He must spin from nothing.

This insect has many eyes—two in his head, one upon each foot, and another somewhere else, which enable him to see before, behind, sidewise, perpendicularly, horizontally, slantindicularly, and irrelevantly; and so, when a fly happens to light anywhere upon his web, it is seen in a moment, and paid attention to immediately.

The common house spider, ladies and gentlemen, resembles a teakettle so remotely that a child may tell the difference with an eye and a half. One has more legs than the other: one never sings—the other does occasionally: one is about as big as a minute—the other a pursy, potbellied concern, equal in size to-a rainy day.

It is remarkable how strong is the thread spun by the spider. Almost invisible as it is, yet it holds the heavy weight of its maker; and I don't know, ladies and gentlemen, but it might hold a common lawyer's argument. The poet thus describes its strength:

The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tenderest tie;
It snaps in every breeze of jealousy.

When the spider has made a captive an innocent fly, he exults over his victim as Southey says did Maimuna over Thalaba:

The web's spun,
The prize is won,
The work is done,
For I have made captive Hoderiah's son.

There are many kinds of spiders, ladies and gentlemen, besides the two that crawled up King Richard's arm. There is the little grey spider, the larger brown spider, the still bigger yellow spider, and the monstrous black spider—the last named of which sometimes grows to the size of a young frying-pan; and, should it happen to bite you, you die of spiderphobia in less than two shakes of a lobster's liver.

Originally published in New Patent Sermons and Machine Poetry

The Maniac

Source: The Lady's Cabinet Album

What object in all this wide world is more pitiable, than a being bereft of reason, Heaven's best and noblest gift? Shut out from the world, its hopes, its fears, separated by an impassable gulf from all that was once near and dear, such beings seem to live in a creation of their own, peopled with the hideous monsters of a morbid and distempered fancy. The maniac may laugh, and it would seem that gleams of imaginary joy and hope, at intervals cross his mind; but, they are like the lurid glare of lightning amid the darkness of a tempestuous night. Alas! Who can contemplate “the wreck of all that is great and noble,” without feeling agony indescribable, that he can communicate no relief. The unhappy being is unconscious of pity or sympathy. Hard must be the heart, and mean the soul, that does not drop the tear of sensibility, whilst beholding the human mind in a state of total alienation. [ Read The Maniac, Complete ] (opens in a new window)

Pancakes for Mother

I love pancakes, and it would certainly be nice to wake up on Mother's Day to a heaping short stack. Yes, this is a hint. The following recipes are from The American Family Receipt Book, 1902.

French Pancakes: Two cupfuls of flour, one heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder, three eggs, a pinch of salt and one cupful of milk. Beat thoroughly and fry on a hot griddle. Roll up and fill with any kind of cold meat, chopped fine and fried in butter.

Breakfast Griddle-Cakes: Take one pint buttermilk or sour milk, one teaspoonful of salt and soda, two eggs. Then thicken with flour and cook on a hot griddle just before eating.

English Pancakes: Sift together one teacupful of flour, one teaspoonful of baking-powder and a pinch of salt; beat two eggs with one tablespoonful of sugar and dilute with one pint of milk and one teacupful of cream; make thin batter with flour. Cook in hot frying-pan with melted butter, using sufficient batter to cover the pan.

Pancakes Au Naturel: Use two eggs, one-quarter of a pint of flour, butter, one-half of a pink of milk, one tablespoonful of sugar. Rub a little salt into the flour in a basin, make a hole in the center, stir in part of the milk until the flour is well mixed; break in one egg and beat with the flat side of a spoon for five minutes, add the other and beat until the surface is covered with air bubbles, then mix in the remainder of the milk; melt a piece of butter as large as a walnut in a small saute-pan and pour in sufficient batter to make a thin pancake; shake the pan gently for two or three minutes, then turn the pancake with a plate, or toss it, and brown the other side; when done serve on a napkin on a plate, to absorb the grease, sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice and eat immediately.

Floral Sentiments, or, What Do The Flowers Say?

Adapted from The Language of Flowers, 1846, is this chart showing the Victorian meanings of flowers. (opens in a new window)

Important: This is an archived newsletter. Miss Mary's Gazette has been replaced by a blog, read it today at http://www.missmarysgazette.com

Miss Mary's Gazette, Content and Images © 2004 Mary B. Welsch