Sarah Stickney Ellis

“ We see this in the papering of rooms, for how painful is the sensation of being in a small room, the walls of which are covered with a pattern that seems to make them come near, and almost close upon us, like the iron tomb which grew less and less every night, though by almost imperceptible degrees. ”

“ Silent as everything was around us, we were constantly looking out from the windows, when, a little before twelve o’clock, we espied a man on a great horse, tearing the ground at full gallop, with an empty pillion behind him. ”

“ THE PILLION.
Amongst the various changes which have passed upon our social habits within the last halfcentury, there are none which astonish us more, on looking back, than those which belong to our modes of travelling. That men must occasionally travel in the way of their business, must pass from market to market, or from town to town, and sometimes even from one country to another, has long been recognised as a necessity of their modes of existence ”

“ He always looks old, and his very voice sounds as if it had grown deep and hoarse with long usage amongst the winds and storms that beat about old church towers, or roar through unfrequented forests. My raven was a very social bird, fond of human fellowship, and by no means of a morose or melancholy turn of mind. ”

“ The highest rank was of course awarded to my father; the next highest, as was very natural, to the cook, and so on through all grades of the family, until the utmost contempt, blended with the same relative proportion of spite, culminated in the lowest kitchen maid, whose red elbows often exhibited the marks of the monkey’s teeth, and whose shrieks of terror were the accustomed announcement that the animal had broken loose. ”

“ Far more entertaining and more relishing to us, though perhaps I ought to be ashamed to confess it, were the conversations of two bachelor uncles, and of one especially, who seemed to be constituted in a remarkable manner for observing the habits, and diving into the nature and feelings of animals, without the enlightenment of a single spark of science. He was a man strangely set apart from human fellowship, with a shut heart, but keen perceptions, and a strong but partially cultivated understanding. ”

“ Pushed beyond this pace—spurred into a brisk trot, or worse, into a gallop—both horse and riders presented a spectacle more grotesque than it is easy to imagine, the poor woman having no power whatever to accommodate herself to such extraordinary circumstances.
Indeed, nothing could exceed the entire helplessness and utter dependence of this situation to a woman. Hence it agreed better with our grandmothers, than it would with us. All which the poor woman could do with the horse, let it behave as it might, would be to pull its tail—a mode of proceeding seldom found either soothing or salutary ”

“ They must have broad, comfortable backs, and the flatter the better, towards the tail. They must not go with a long launching pace, or the poor woman would roll like a boat in a rough sea. A quiet, regular, jig-jog, never lifting the feet high from the ground, was the pace required—just the next degree in swiftness to a walk—a pace into which horses naturally fall, and which, when their spirits are not too high, they seem to prefer to any other. ”

“ The avocations of men lead them so often away from these matters of social and domestic arrangement, that women are left very much to themselves in this department of taste, and must have opportunities innumerable, in which men take no part, for studying the various combinations and effects, or the harmonies and discords, both of form and colour, as displayed in the objects immediately around them. Even upon their own dresses what an amount of invention must be bestowed to produce those exqusitely delicate and elaborate patterns by which muslin, calico, and silk fabrics are now adorned. ”

“ Besides those that were regularly domesticated, we had many shy friends of the fields and the garden who maintained a more stealthy intercourse with us, coming to be fed on a little raised table which we had placed near the dining-room windows in order to enjoy the pleasure of seeing them plentifully supplied, or hopping upon our hands and shoulders when we sate upon a very retired old garden seat kept almost sacred to this kind of intercourse. ”

“ One day spent in observing the patterns contained in a single room, and in considering how to improve them, would do more for the minds of such workers than years occupied in fine stitching, without an idea attached to it; and when once the faculty of invention has fairly got to work, if only in improving what others have invented, it produces sensations of an animating and pleasurable kind, such as can never be the accompaniment of servile and slavish work. ”

“ The gentleman was a physician of talent and property, so that it was from no degrading necessity that they travelled in this style; and if the wonderfully handsome countenance of a woman of eighty may be interpreted as a record of her youthful beauty, he must, in that journey, have turned his back upon a picture as attractive as ever charmed a lover’s fancy. ”

“ Of course, like all other exact and beautiful arts, that of designing patterns is not acquired in a moment. If left until the season of necessity, there is every reason to fear it will never be acquired at all. The very faculty of invention itself, if allowed to lie dormant for twenty years, will prove very inefficient when suddenly set to work for the first time under the stress of adverse circumstances. ”

“ Thus, if ever any romping, fun, or even quarrelling took place amongst the servants, the monkey, though chattering all the while with proportionate vehemence, reserved his spite until the appearance of my father, when he would begin to chatter again with renewed emphasis, sometimes after the expiration of an hour, and as he told his tale, he would bob his head towards the culprit, with a grunt so emphatic, that it was impossible to be mistaken as to the offending party. ”

“ His winter residence was a comfortable recess beside the kitchen-fire, in a situation which commanded the view of a large hall, with all the congregating of animal life both dumb and vocal which used to throng that route, or meet beneath his quick and piercing eye. I mention this, because this situation afforded free scope for the exercise of that peculiar faculty or tendency which was the only thing that has ever struck me as peculiarly interesting in monkey character. ”

“ In my father’s case, the tendency in his children to make themselves acquainted with animal existence, under all its various forms, was made the groundwork of many a grave discourse, in which he tried to lift our hearts “from nature up to nature’s God.” ”

“ In the same manner we have all, no doubt, detected in the papering of a room some one-sided cast of this kind in flowers, leaves, or any other figures, making the paper look as if not placed straight upon the wall, or making even the wall itself appear slanting, so that the eye becomes continually puzzled, and painfully occupied in tracing out lines which have no agreement either with the horizontal or the perpendicular. ”

“ Amongst our cats, for example, one may very possibly be an animal of the most staid and sober habits, while another may exhibit the most eccentric propensities, and this not only in its kittenhood, but up to maturity, perhaps perching herself where no cat was ever seen before, or cultivating the affections of some dog with whom her parents and relatives had lived at deadly strife. ”

“ In addition to this, the women all expected to be fetched to their places—boxes, bundles, and all—holding out under all circumstances against walking, or going by themselves without conveyance or escort. Thus, where the women servants were numerous, and the places wide apart, the riding about with pillions created quite a stir in the country; and the arrival of each with her bundle on her lap—or perhaps her bandbox there, and the bundle on the arm of the man or boy—was a very dignified, as well as interesting occasion. ”

“ To the north of England, and the remote dales of Yorkshire, and, indeed, wherever the population has longest retained its agricultural character, we must go to find the habits of the people genuine, and true to old customs, and institutions: and here it is not necessary to look so far back as half a century for some of the scenes which I am about to describe, as connected with that truly dignified apparatus for travelling called the pillion. ”

“ It would be impossible to describe the beauty and the grace of this little creature while performing its varied evolutions, or the rapidity with which it would dart from one part of the room to another, always most animated in the dusk of the evening, or, as I fancied, when moonlight shone into the room ”

“ But as one who has known, for no inconsiderable period of human experience, what it is to dwell in close intercourse with such associates, I will speak of some of my own personal friends, in evidence, not only of the amusement they have afforded me, but with a deep sense of gratitude for the many hours which they have beguiled of weariness; the many otherwise solitary moments they have cheered, and the kindly feelings they have often awakened in the midst of circumstances highly calculated both to disturb and embitter. ”

“ We want to stand upon our carpets, not to slip through them. And yet some of those exquisite fabrics produced by the looms of the Messrs. Crosby have exactly this design successfully carried out—an appearance of soft atmospheric distance, alternating with the richest groups of scrolls and flowers. On a wall this effect would be more appropriate, but in the flooring of a room these alternations of depth and air convey a certain feeling that we shall stumble into holes in the dark places, and slip through in the light ”

“ If anything could destroy this individuality it would be the uniformity of the purposes for which animals are employed by man, such as the daily work of the horse, which requires that all engaged in one kind of labour should move alike in the same routine manner. ”

“ Remembering what all the weazel tribe can be when assailed or injured, some persons would be disgusted at the idea of such a household guest. But it should be borne in mind, that the means of defence which nature has given to these animals, and which renders them so offensive when worried by dogs, or otherwise wounded, has nothing whatever to do with their quiescent condition; so that, if kindly treated, and made healthy and happy, the weazel is as cleanly and delicate an animal as the squirrel, or any other of our accustomed pets. ”

“ The wonder is now what the dear, restless souls actually did with themselves when home became a little dull, and they wanted to be off somewhere, and the kind physician of the family thought a little change would do them good, and they thought so too. ”

“ Nothing, for instance, could look more incongruous than a large woman seated on a pillion behind a little man, especially as the thick cushion, provided for her use, was always much higher than the saddle before it. A boy was sometimes sent to escort a portly matron in this way, of which a curious instance occurred under the observation of a friend of mine. She had been struck with the length of time that a horse remained at a gate upon the road near her residence, and looking out more intently to ascertain the cause, she perceived a large female-figure seated on a pillion behind ”

“ For simple independence of position there can be no question but the latter bears the palm; but as a matter of feeling to a well brought up, and a well educated woman, the difference is immense the other way. ”

“ There are two very different ways of enjoying the companionship of tame animals. One is by petting and fondling them without regard to their natural habits and individual happiness; the other is by cultivating their friendship, and engaging their affections, and at the same time allowing them free scope for the exercise of their peculiar tendencies of character. For that animals have distinctive character, and differ individually one from another much in the same way that human beings differ, is a fact universally acknowledged by all who have studied them in their natural condition. ”

“ When we speak of tame animals, however, we generally mean such as are tamed for our pleasure, not employed for our use; and these being various in species, as well as in the treatment to which they are subjected, cannot be prevented by any law of uniformity from developing their natural peculiarities of character. In this respect, then, as well as in many others, we may derive from the society of tame animals a fund of perpetual amusement. ”

“ I remember a circumstance connected with this mode of transit for female servants, which exceeded most things I ever met with for coolness, or, if one might choose to call it so, for heroism; and indeed, there can be little doubt but that the word heroism has often been used with no more legitimate application, for how much of what people call daring is, in reality, like that which I am about to describe—nothing but ignorance? ”

“ There are very few patterns in which we require what painters call depth, and all attempts to reach this point, so desirable in a picture, had better be let alone, where the fact of a surface being level constitutes its merit. Such depth as gives the appearance of work slightly raised, as in the diaper patterns of the Alhambra in the Crystal Palace, may be always appropriate, but beyond this the effect must generally be doubtful, and often worse than that. ”

“ The precision with which this powerful instrument could be made to take effect, was no small addition to the terror which our raven was accustomed to inspire, particularly amongst that class of individuals who do not look well to their heels. ”