James Hamilton Fyfe

“ Suburban gardens are sadly pillaged about this season; and many a worthy citizen, pacing his trim gravel walks, till the ’bus comes to the door, is dismayed to find that his pet holly bush has been remorsely mangled, and stripped of all its bright array of scarlet berries. The quest for mistletoe must, however, be carried further a-field, and is attended with greater risk, as it involves the climbing of high orchard walls, stuck full of iron spikes and broken glass, and sometimes affrays with dogs and watchmen. ”

“ On their return from Normandy, the King and Prince of Wales are entertained at a grand banquet at Dover. The Countess Joan is present, and the Prince, fascinated by her beauty, can scarcely withdraw his eyes from her for a moment. Afraid of offending his father by too open a manifestation of his passion, the Prince departs with the royal train, gives it the slip on the road, hurries back to Dover, and seeks a private interview with Joan, which she accords. In a “cool harbour,” he avows his affection, and the lovers plight troth together. ”

“ Over the point of intersection of the nave and transept, marked by the clump of cedars, the great dome will spring to a total height of 345 feet. No matter how intense may be the sunshine, its beams will be so refracted and tempered by the glass of this cupola, which is manufactured after a new fashion, that all undue heat or garishness will be subdued without the intervention of an awning. Round the building, at the height of some twenty-five feet from the ground, will run a range of elegant galleries. On every side will be arrayed specimens of the arts and industries of the world. ”

“ Here we get a capital panoramic view of Paris, with its domes and towers rising out of the dull red and white labyrinth of streets. The dusty plain of the Champ de Mars lies before us on the other side of the river, and the ceaseless, monotonous tattoo of the young drummers practising among the trees reaches our ears in softened cadence. We have surmounted the col now, and enter a pleasant highway lined with trees and villas. The houses by the road-side vary in style. ”

“ In the same way a wicked law has declared Passy to be part and parcel of Paris; Passy repudiates the charge with scorn and anger. By a legal fiction it may be so, but as to the individuality of Passy being dead, we have it on the word and honour of every inhabitant that it never was more vivid or emphatic. You see this was once a green country town, and made a good living out of the summer visitors. It has a mineral spring, too, and would like to be a fashionable watering-place, only it can’t get people to believe any longer that, to be in Passy, is to be in the country. ”

“ The Pontiff very properly pronounced that the marriage which had been carried into effect was the true one. In 1361, Sir Thomas had just died, and Joan was a widow, with four bouncing “encumbrances.” At this critical period of her fortunes she was fair, fat, and not far off forty (being thirty-three years of age) . The Prince of Wales was two years her junior, and, like Launcelot, was one of “the goodliest men that ever among ladies eat in hall.” ”

“ Just now, when the royal marriage is so much the topic of the day, a little gossip, gathered in the byways of history, concerning some other “auspicious events” of the same kind, may not be out of place. These events, however, have been by no means so frequent as one might naturally suppose. The Registrar-General, whose matter-of-fact eye looks upon matrimony as one of the exact sciences, tells us that, when a man is in receipt of a comfortable income, he is pretty sure to marry. ”

“ Entering a lofty portal, in the ornamentation of which will be conspicuous a fine screen of wrought iron and some beautiful stained glass, and passing through a short avenue of shrubs and statues, the visitor will find himself in a long and spacious transept cutting at right angles a nave of equal size running north and south. ”

“ New refreshment houses are springing up, and the old ones are adding each a wing or a storey. Before long we may expect to see a little commissariat city here. Turning down a dull, ill-kept road to the left, with two or three mouldy-looking villas on the one hand, and a dingy dead wall on the other, I come upon the site of the new undertaking—a site occupied down to the days of the Grand Monarque by a royal hunting-lodge, and subsequently by the Château du Coq, and the magnificent conservatories built by Richelieu. ”

“ The lady’s epistle is equally common-place, merely urging the dear man to take care of himself, and to keep out of danger for her sake, which is just what one might expect Sukey the cook to say to Policeman X. during a garotting epidemic, when bidding adieu for the night on the area steps. Soon after the Prince comes home in triumph, and the King in a fit of good-nature accepts Joan as a daughter-in-law. ”

“ In metal work, porcelain, jewellery, in all those arts which minister to luxury as well as in those which supply the wants of life, the materials for a similar comparison will be supplied. Numerous statues will be seen, glimmering white among groves of plants and shrubs, and there will be a corridor of paintings. But the exposition will be not only a museum, but a mart, for all the objects exhibited will be for sale, and a constant variety and succession of contributions will thus be secured. At each extremity of the building will be an elegant refreshment pavilion. ”

“ It is a modest two-storey house, turning its whitewashed gable end towards the street. Through the open gate in the high, jealous wall I get a sight of a tidy little garden and of the front of the house, which is very plain, with small old-fashioned windows and wooden trellis-work, on which a creeper hangs gracefully. ”

“ The swimming-baths are gay with fluttering pennons; the washerwomen in their barges are hard at work thumping the obstinately dirty clothes with wooden mallets; the tide keeps the clumsy wheels of the colour-grinding maching in lively motion. ”

“ In order “to do more honour to the said marriage” when the banns were put up, they were denied by a doctor of laws, specially appointed by the King to act as a sort of devil’s advocate; then another “famous doctour” was heard on the other side, and finally the Master of the Rolls gravely gave judgment in favour of the legitimacy of the marriage. The other incident was, that when the ceremony was over, the Duke of York (afterwards Henry VIII.) , stepped forward and led off the bride, just as if she had been his own, the real bridegroom walking humbly behind. ”

“ All nature mourned so bitterly the death of Balder, that Hela consented to restore him; and the mistletoe was then consecrated to his mother, in order to prevent its being again used as an instrument of mischief. Friga, being the Scandinavian Venus, it is easy to see how kissing under the mistletoe came into fashion. Lest the occasional scarcity of the plant should at all check the popularity of the pleasant rite, the maidens used to make “kissing bunches” of evergreens, decked with ribbons and oranges, which it was said did just as well. ”

“ The house in the Rue Molière in which Racine wrote “Les Plaideurs,” has since been the residence of Madame Récamier and Franklin. Near the villa which was once a seat of the Dukes of Montmorency, you may still see the habitation where Madame Helvetius, widow of the author of “L’Esprit,” passed her latter years, receiving the visits of a circle of distinguished men, including Turgot, Franklin, and Napoleon, but never forgetting amidst the distractions of such society to be kind and charitable to the poor, who called her in gratitude Notre Dame d’Auteuil. ”

“ The majority of the dwelling-houses are villas of moderate size, plain and elegant, with none of the elaborate coxcombry of what your cockney calls his cottage ornée. They are the refuge of government clerks and other officials—men with fixed salaries of not too liberal a figure, who have been driven from their old quarters on a third floor in the heart of the capital by the Emperor’s demolitions and buildings. The new mansions are too dear for them. ”

“ The negotiations in regard to the alliance lasted for eight years, and the boy-prince had no sooner mastered the conjugation amo, than he began, with the help of his tutor, to indite love letters in precise, pedantic Latin to his little mistress, whom he never ventured to address more familiarly than as “most illustrious and excellent lady,” “your Highness,” and “your Excellency.” ”

“ Giles and Seven Dials, are busily engaged in reaping the harvest of evergreens in the country round London, sometimes tramping back to town every night, at other times sleeping in barns’ and outhouses, and, occasionally, after a lucky search, indulging in the luxury of a two-penny “lodging for travellers.” It will not do to inquire too particularly whence the supplies of evergreens, with which we decorate our parlours and dining-rooms, are originally obtained. In some cases the right to gather them has been duly paid for ”

“ Of the fourteen Princes of Wales, known to English history, only five married while holding that title. The others, excepting, of course, those who died at a tender age, disported freely in l’école buissonnière, and only consented to range themselves, as a duty to society, when they came to the throne. ”

“ The former represents Joan as a knowing, out-spoken widow, the other as quite a “gushing young thing.” Barnes says that when the Prince first spoke to Joan about love, it was while advocating the suit of another. After several times declaring her indifference to the Prince’s friend, the lady plainly expressed her preference for the Prince’s self, by telling him “with some warmth how, when she was under ward, she had been disposed of by others, but that now being at years of discretion, and mistress of her own actions, she would not cast herself beneath her rank ”