It’s simply perfect!
Today is my birthday, and if I cannot have this room for my birthday, then I want to spend my birthday in this room…and I’ll never leave.
Some the same flirtation manual I posted earlier, the one about how to flirt with a parasol, I give you this: How to flirt with a handkerchief.
I am of two minds about handkerchiefs: I adore them, I love embroidering them and collecting them… but I hate the idea of using them because the wear and tear is too much. Plus germs.
For people that have trouble discerning their left from their right, please practice in a mirror (taking care to note that the image is reversed in a looking-glass), otherwise you will offend everyone by saying “I hate you..wait…no I love you but I forget which left is my left and which left is your left!” (I do know people who have to think for a moment or two before remembering which side is left and which is right).
With the rose the butterfly’s deep in love,
A thousand times hovering round;
But round herself, all tender like gold,
The sun’s sweet ray is hovering found.
For those who still carry parasols (I pray I’m not the only one), here is a very detailed way to communicate with a friend or paramour. Whoever you are communicating with, make sure they are also fluent in the symbolism spelled out by your parasol. Otherwise, you will look as mad as a March hare.
Look! the massy trunks
Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water-drops,
That glimmer with an amethystine light.
While I adore the past, I think it is important to remember that a lot of things accepted as fact in the past…were utterly mad.
~ The Practical Cook Book, 1882
I have a slight crazy obsession with any sort of memento mori, and one of my favourite types of memento mori is mourning photography. Before the creation of the daguerréotype in the late 1830’s, people would have to rely on a portrait painter to memorialize their loved ones. The main problem with having the portrait commissioned was that the cost of sitting for a portrait was very steep, meaning poorer families could not afford to hire a painter.
With photography, it became cheaper, faster and easier to obtain portraits of your dearly beloved. Sadly, the Victorian era had a very high infant mortality rate, and in many cases, the mourning portrait would be the only image of the child that the family would ever possess.
After the daguerréotype became commonplace, the need to make multiple copies from a single negative became necessary and the creation of the carte de visite allowed for multiple prints to be made. The carte de visite allowed people to have multiple photographs roughly the same size as the very popular calling card (11cm x 17cm). For families in mourning, the carte would be mailed to extended members of the family.
To make the subjects appear ‘life-like’, they would be posed in sitting positions, sometimes the eyes would be propped open, or eyes would be drawn on the photograph. In some pictures, a blush is painted on the cheeks.
Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.
A jacket from 1885 made of silk and velvet with a quilted satin lining, trimmed with arctic fox fur and silk chenille fringing. The design, which perfectly complimented the exaggerated bustles of the period, combined with the mixture of expensive materials would make this jacket the height of fashion and luxury.
Simply divine. And before anyone becomes upset at the use of fur, I highly doubt that arctic foxes are prone to living 128 years and if they do, then I am curious as to how they achieved such a Methuselah-like age.
The old woman received her kindly, and pointed out a chair on which she might sit. You must have met with a misfortune, she said, since you have sought out my lonely cottage. With tears, the woman related what had befallen her. Be comforted, said the old woman, I will help you. Here is a golden comb for you. Tarry till the full moon has risen, then go to the mill-pond, seat yourself on the shore, and comb your long black hair with this comb. When you have done, lay it down on the bank, and you will see what will happen.
The woman returned home, but the time till the full moon came, passed slowly. When at last the shining disc appeared in the heavens, she went out to the mill-pond, sat down and combed her long black hair with the golden comb, and when she had finished, she laid
it down at the water’s edge. It was not long before there was a movement in the depths, a wave rose, rolled to the shore, and bore the comb away with it.
