In This Issue
Chit-Chat
Every Boy His Own Ice-Boat
Victorian Wall Pocket
Autograph Album Verses
Winter Needlework
The Art of Staymaking
Colonel Mavers on Human Joys
And the Usual Good Stuff
Destinations
Of course you know all about Miss Mary's Quaint & Curious Clip Art, right?
La Vie en Rose offers beautiful gifts for extraordinary women. Unique Book Gift Baskets feature a great novel with music and tea chosen to compliment the novel's setting and mood creating a wonderful reading experience. Children's Book Baskets include classic stories and amazing puppets.
Events
Contact Me to recommend Victorian events for this space.
The Sand Creek Raiders are hosting a Sweetheart Victorian Ball on February 12, 2005. This is the 5th year for the this annual event. The Sand Creek Raiders are a not for profit organization located in Aurora, Colorado. The Victorian Ball will be held at the Marriott Hotel, Gateway, located at 16455 East 40th Circle, Aurora, Colorado. Miss Tabitha will be the dance mistress calling the event, with Grandview Orchestra providing musical entertainment.
Interested parties can contact Cheryl Wilson at (303) 934-3933 for more information.
Receipts & Remedies
Macaroni Cheese
Materials
Half a pound of macaroni; boiling water; salt and pepper; two ounces of cheese; half an ounce of butter; some bread crumbs.
Process:
Break the macaroni into small pieces; put it into a stewpan with some boiling water sufficient to cover it, and let it simmer until soft and tender. Strain off the water, and lay the macaroni on a flat dish, or in a pie-dish that has been well buttered — the former is preferable. Season with pepper and salt to taste, adding a few grains of cayenne, if liked. Then cut the cheese, if soft, into thin slices, and spread the slices all over the macaroni, adding small lumps of butter here and there, and sprinkling the whole with fine bread crumbs. Set before the fire or place in the oven for five or ten minutes, so that the macaroni may be impregnated with the flavour of the melting cheese, and the surface nicely browned.
After macaroni cheese is sent to table, those who partake of it should sprinkle over it a little YORKSHIRE RELISH, manufactured by Messrs. Goodall, Backhouse, and Co., of Leeds. -- Good Things Made, Said and Done, 1879.
Novel Mode of Making Coffee
Put two ounces of ground coffee into a stewpan, which set upon the fire, stirring the powder around with a spoon until quite hot, when pour over a pint of boiling water; cover over closely for five minutes, when strain it through a cloth, rinse out the stewpan, pour the coffee, which will be quite clear, back into it, place it on the fire, and when near boiling, serve with hot milk. -- The Succesful Housekeeper, 1880s
Household Hints
Newspaper clippings found pasted in a memorandum book dated 1887.
It often happens that eggs get frozen before being gathered. If kept frozen till used they can be then taken into a warm room and scalding water poured over them, then left to cool, when the egg will be found uninjured for use. They will then beat as nicely as if they had never been chilled. They should be used at once after being thawed.
Warm water and castille soap, with a thorough rinsing after they are takenout of the suds, is excellent for washing white silk handkerchiefs.
Old brass may be cleaned to look new by pouring strong ammonia on it and scrubbing with a scrub brush. Rinse in clear water.
A little borax put in water in which scarlet napkins and red bordered towels are to be washed will prevent them from fading.
Sir William Gull says that when fagged out by professional work he recruits his strength by eating raisins, and not by drinking wine or brandy. Another good saying from the same source: A pint of warm water, taken on an empty stomach in the morning, is the safest and surest of all remedies for habitual constipation. It dissolves the fecal matter and stimulates peristaltic action, thereby giving a normal action without pain. If the tongue is coated, squeeze a lemon into the water and drink without sweetening.
To clean bottles, put into them some kernels of corn and a tablespoon of ashes, half fill them with water, and after a vigerous shaking and rinsing you will find the bottles good as new.
Gleanings
The Voluntary Excitement of Sorrow
It is strange that we should find pleasure stimulating our grief into exercise. Yet there is truth in the remark of Seneca, that sorrow itself has a kind of delight attending it. The Jews who came to Mary's house to comfort her, 'when they saw that she went out hastily, followed her, saying, She goeth to the grave, to weep there;' 'as those do,' says Calvin, 'who seek to provoke their troubles, by going to the grave, or often looking upon the dead.'
Source: Flavel, in The Cypress Wreath, A Book of Consolation for Those Who Mourn. 1844
Victorian Poetry
Uncle Herbert's Speaker, 1886
Silly Little Mary
Silly little Mary,
Sulking all the day,
While the other children
Run about and play.
Silly little Mary
Wears a peevish look,
When she sees the others
Laughing at the brook.
Silly little Mary
Will not skip or swing,
Won't at puss-in-corner play,
Won't do anything.
Silly little Mary
Hides behind the bank,
In among the roots and weeds,
All so thick and rank.
Find charming Victorian children's illustration in "Miss Mary's Little Ones."
Links and Things
Share your site or product with us. Contact Miss Mary for information.
Visit RetroRevival.com, a new retrofied community from Averyl.
Chit-Chat
As this issue is out closer to St. Valentine's Day, I've included a few Autograph Album Verses that would be splendid inside home-made cards or on scrapbook pages. Look for more of these verses to appear in future issues.
I made this wall pocket using a red file folder, Victorian Clip Art, a large Royal Lace doilie, gold floss and white ribbon.
After cutting off the top tab to even up the edge, I punched three holes on either side and added grommets to make threading the white 1/4 inch wide ribbon easier.
The ribbons were cut into 12 inch sections and folded in half to form a loop. The two open ends were tied into a neat little knot. I used my fingers as a guide to measure how much slack to leave when pulling the ribbon through—one finger wide on the bottom; the middle, two, and the top, three. I passed some gold floss through the back two loops to form a hanger.
I do love wall pockets, so look for some authentic Victorian instructions in future issues.
Every Boy His Own Ice-Boat
Very few skaters have not, now and then, to a moderate extent, made ice-boats of themselves by standing up straight, with their backs to the wind, and allowing themselves to be blown along before it. Coats, held wide open, umbrellas, shawls, and the like, have been used to gain greater speed; but, after all was done, there remained the long pull back against the wind—no laughing matter, with the thermometer in the twenties, or lower, and a howling north-wester sending the loose snow in stinging sheets along the ice. There was so much fun, however, in running down before the gale, that boys have always made light of working to windward. Why in the world it did not sooner occur to some ingenious lad that he could turn himself into an efficient ice-boat, is one of those things that cannot be explained; but certain it is that, until last winter, the world at large did not know that Canadians were in the habit of rigging themselves with spars and canvas, sailing “close-hauled,” “ running free,” having themselves “ taken aback, ” “missing stays,” being struck by squalls, and, in short, going through no end of fascinating maneuvers, with the aid of the wind, and without danger of a ducking in case of an upset.
Autograph-Album Verses: Love
From Uncle Herbert's Speaker and Autograph-Album Verses, 1887
Love is a subject to himself alone,
And knows no other empire than his own.
****
Look how the blue-eyed violets
Glance love to one another!
Their little leaves are whispering
The vows they may not smother.
The birds are pouring passion forth
In every blossoming tree;--
If flowers and birds talk love, lady,
Why not we?
****
Why should I blush to own I love?
'Tis Love that rules the realms above.
Why should I blush to say to all
That virtue holds my heart in thrall?
Why should I seek the thickest shade,
Lest Love's dear secret be betrayed?
Why the stern brow deceitful move,
When I am languishing with love?
Is it a weakness thus to dwell
On passion that I dare not tell?
Such weakness I would ever prove.
'Tis painful, but ‘tis sweet to love!
****
I Hold it true, whate'er befall--
I feel it when I sorrow most--
‘Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.
Oh, how the passions, insolent and strong,
Bear our weak minds their rapid course along;
Make us the madness of their will obey;
Then die, and leave us to our griefs a prey.
****
LOVE! What a volume in a word! an ocean in a tear!
A Seventh heaven in a glance! a whirlwind in a sigh!
The lightning in a touch—a millennium in a moment!
What concentrated joy, or woe, in blest or blighted love!
****
Although my heart, in earlier youth,
Might kindle with more wild desire,
Believe me, it has gained in truth
Much more than it has lost in fire;
The flame now warms my inmost core,
That then but sparkled on thy brow;
And though I seem'd to love thee more,
Yet, oh, I love thee better now.
****
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt Truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love!
****
Oh, how bitter a thing it is to look
Into happiness through another man's eyes!
****
LOVE is a pearl of purest hue,
But stormy waves are round it;
And dearly may a woman rue
The hour that first she found it.
****
Ah me! how deep the poison lies
Which late I drank from ____'s eyes!
It burns, it spreads; each tortured vein
Throbs with the agonizing pain.
****
I need not say how, one by one,
Love's flowers have dropp'd from off love's chain;
Enough to say that they are gone,
And that they cannot bloom again.
****
Love is, or ought to be, our greatest bliss;
Since every other joy, how dear soever,
Gives way to that, and we leave all for love.
Winter Needlework: Crazy Quilts and Other Patchwork
Source: "Snowdrifts:" Being The Extra Christmas Number of "The Girl's Own Paper."
I consider that patchwork is one of the most amusing occupations, in its present form, that can be presented to the invalid and the old, as well as to those who have an artistic eye and enjoy the arrangement of colour and the forming of pretty and original designs. The new ideas of patchwork approach more nearly to appliqué, than to the old ideas of sewing tiny diamond-shaped forms together on the wrong side to make a sort of tessellated pavement arrangement, when all was completed. It was not particularly pretty, but as long as it was considered fashionable everyone did it and tried to think it repaid the trouble of making it. For teaching little children to sew, this old kind of patchwork still affords the very best method, as they see a speedy result to their efforts, and are encouraged to persevere while amused in their work. Anyone who has tried to make some wretched child work its weary way down a long seam will recognize the truth of my idea. Read More...
Art of Staymaking
By Emily H. May in Peterson's Magazine, February, 1855
In pursuing our intention of giving a series of articles, instructing the readers of “Peterson” how to make their own dresses, we take up, this month, the subject of Stay-making. There is nothing in dress so important as to have stays made properly. Physicians unite to say, that, while such heavy skirts are worn, stays are indispensable to prevent pressure on some of the most delicate organs of the body, which is invariably the result where skirts are tied around the waist, without stays to distribute their weight. A badly fitting stay, however, cramps the figure, and injures the health seriously. A correct stay avoids tight-lacing, and it is how to make one of this kind, that we shall now proceed to describe. Read More...
Colonel Mavers On... Human Joys
My Hearers—you are a poor set of mortals, any how. You don't own anything—your bodies belong to the earth, your souls to the Creator, and your property to posterity. To day, you may roll in the carrion of wealth—like poor, miserable dogs as you are—and to-morrow, where are you, and all your wealth? you are gone to afford a poor supper to clod worms! and the golden heaps which you toiled, sweated, and sacrifices so much of this world's enjoyment to scrape together, are left to be spread, like manure, over the face of a future generation. The rich man is always poor, and the poor man is never rich. The one may erect a magnificent monument to Mammon, and, at the same time, be too poor to drop a copper in the lap of Penury; and the other turns his comforts into curses by envying the counterfeit case of Affluence. If one of you were lost in a wilderness, with as big a bag of gold as you could carry, and starving for food you would give it all for a town pauper's dinner. Under such a circumstance, you see, my friends, that the rich man is the pauper, and the pauper the rich man. You are rich only by comparison, and decidedly poor at that. Why, all the wealth that could be piled upon this worm-eaten, poverty-stricken sphere, would no more compare with the riches piled in one corner of heaven, than all you can find in my breeches pockets will compare with the universal debt of gratitude to the Almighty—which has been going on at the rate of 7 per cent, compound interest, ever since the world began.
My friends—let us reflect upon the matter as we will, almost everything turns out poor at the end, like a mermaid. Our bright moments of joy dive into the deep gullet of the Past with the rapidity of young snakes down the throat of their maternal ancestor—our glossy hopes of terrestrial Future come to us half-starved in appearance; with drooping pinions and rumpled feathers; looking as though they had been out in a storm for a month of Sundays—while the Present finds favor with none, being too poor to command respect; and so it is pushed aside for that everlasting ‘good time coming.' Look at the noble youth, glowing with pride and ambition, and rosy with health! See him again, old and decrepid, feeling his way with his staff to the tomb in the dull twilight of existence, borne down with a weary load of years and cares! Doesn't he turn out rather poorly at last? Behold the blooming belle of seventeen summers, beaming with beauty, glowing with love, and sparkling with joy! See her again between the latitudes 30 and 40, as laid down upon Time's chart, where the climate is too cold for the little naughty naked god—where the flowers of love are few and unfragrant, and where the lilies and roses of personal loveliness wear a pale, cinnamon-like and sickly hue. To speak more plainly, behold her a faded, saffron-skinned, juiceless, dried up, withered, mildewed old maid, with mouldy affections and musty hopes—surrounded with poll-parrots and tabby-cats, and railing at matrimony in general, and the male sex in particular. A poor change indeed, in the short space of a few years! So it is—all that is young and lovely must soon grow old and fade. Whatever begins well, in this world, must come to a comparatively poor ending, except Truth and Virtue. They put forth buds that blossom for ever, and brighten in their bloom as Eternity grows old.
So mote it be!
Colonel Mavers appears courtesy of Dows New Patent Sermons
