Various

“ I am ashamed to own that I have been regaling myself not wisely but too well upon some of the hottest foods within reach, merely because I liked them. I have dined, and am growing hotter and hotter, in consequence of the dishes which appetite and not reason selected.
Whilst ruminating over a pipe on the evening of one of the dog-days, the thermometer being above eighty degrees in the shade, I have wondered what the goddess Hygeia would have done, and what she would have recommended, under the circumstances, for purposes of health and comfort. ”

“ Nevertheless, the old parson that Izaak Walton speaks of was right: ‘Certainly, God might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but certainly, God never did.’ So let us enjoy this heaven-sent fruit in the dog-days.
Not that we are at a loss for juicy fruits as long as we have our pine-apples and melons and tomatoes, our peaches and jargonelles, grapes and nectarines, and plums and apricots, a very paradisiacal melange, born of our glorious summer; all which indicates that providence nurtured them for the dog-days that we may eat and be satisfied. ”

“ Mr Dupuy was seated quietly at dinner in his own dining-room, with Nora at the opposite end of the table, and Uncle ’Zekiel, the butler, in red plush waistcoat as usual, standing solemnly behind his chair. Mr Dupuy was in excellent spirits, in spite of the little affair of the previous night, for the sugar-cane had cut very heavy, and the boiling was progressing in the most admirable manner. He sipped his glass of St Emilion (as imported) with the slow, easy air of a person at peace with himself and with all creation. The world at large seemed just that moment to suit him excellently. ”

“ We are not an eminently sunny people; our fruit has not the rich orange tints of sunnier climes, where warmth is perennial and perpetual; and then dog-days come at last, and we go out to bask like lizards amongst the sand of our shores, or to splash amongst salt water at our bathing resorts. Our hot days ought to be an enjoyment, which they would be if we prepared ourselves for them and attended to the changes of temperature. ”

“ Hot air should ascend, and cool air come into a house. ‘Dear girls,’ says Hygeia, ‘let these fads alone; pull out all the stuffing, and be natural. You are hot; cool yourselves. Why do you cram chimneys with flowers? It is not a festival. Make room for the king—for air, light, and comfort. Perish the peacock plumes; down with the gaudy flowers; and away with the fernery in front of them! Out with the sooty sacking. Give air, and plenty of it, in the dog-days.’
Hygeia says we don’t make ourselves comfortable by the windows. We ought to have more green and white sun-blinds. ”

“ Nora cut him a good thick slice from the centre of the fruit—it is only in England that people commit the atrocity of cutting pine in thin layers—and laid down the knife with a stifled yawn upon the tall dessert dish. She was evidently bored—very deeply bored indeed. Orange Grove without Harry Noel began to seem a trifle dull; and it must be confessed that to live for months together with an old gentleman of Mr Dupuy’s sluggish temperament was scarcely a lively mode of life for a pretty, volatile, laughter-loving girl of twenty, like little Nora. ”

“ No sooner had we got beyond the points of the two natural breakwaters, than a sea with what sailors call a ‘head’ on it struck us on the starboard bow, sending the boat’s head flying round and filling her quarter-full of water.
‘Gracious powers!’ I cried, ‘we’ll never get out there. And if we do, we’ll never get back safely with the boat full of people.’
‘Pull her head round to the sea, Sam, my boy.—Mind your helm, Arthur, and don’t talk,’ said Herbert calmly. ‘And as soon as we get beyond the rocks, you can start baling,’ he added, as we again met the first wave outside the bay. ”

“ Mr Dupuy, aghast with righteous anger and astonishment, could hardly believe his own ears at this unparalleled piece of nigger impertinence coming from so old a servant as Uncle ’Zekiel. He turned round upon his trusty butler slowly and solemnly, chair and all, and with his two hands planted firmly on his capacious knees, he said in his most awful voice: ‘’Zekiel, I’m quite at a loss to understand what you can mean by such conduct. Didn’t you hear me distinctly say to Miss Nora this very minute that the niggers don’t rise, won’t rise, can’t rise, and never have risen? ”

“ But if, like humble children, we would benefit by the goddess to the full, there are other things to attend to besides food and drink to make us comfortable in the dog-days. We are nearly all astray in the kind of raiment we wear, both in weight and colour and quality and substance. We draw down the divine caloric by dark, heat-producing clothes in a way which shocks Hygeia. Why not take to nankeen and cotton, and please the dear soul, and comfort ourselves as well? She never wore funereal black in hot summers. She never had a hot chimney-pot on her head ”

“ Directly the sun begins to decline, let every maiden and housewife, and man and woman and child, with an eye for the picturesque, and a feeling for health and beauty, throw up the Venetian or Parisian blinds. Open your rooms to the glories of the evening; throw up, and pull down the sashes; open wide all your doors. Let cool breezes enter into corridor and cellar and garret and room; let the ‘caller’ air circulate through every inch of the house hour after hour, whilst you are getting your evening meal, whilst you say your prayers, whilst you think of others after the toils of the day. ”

“ If it be your priceless lot to dwell apart from city life, and have outside your cottage or villa or mansion, flowers, those lovely gifts of Dame Nature, let scents of rose and thyme come in at every gap in the hedge, at every rift of the wall, at every cranny of the house—scents of rosemary and mignonette, and lavender and bergamot, and lily and elderberry. ”

“ If we will have heating food and heavy raiment, we resist the precepts of Hygeia, and we shall fail to win her smile when she draws the curtain for the season.
We must not tempt malaria by walking too late in dewy grass, when the moon is up, and all nature looks bright and beautiful, and only the nightingale sings or the willow-wren warbles amongst the osiers. We may stay out too late, by way of getting cool, until we get quite hot, and feverish with a cough that won’t let us sleep ”

“ HYGEIA IN THE DOG-DAYS.
Hygeia, the Goddess of Health, receives many rebuffs. She has numbers of followers, who pretend to listen to her teachings, but who do not quite understand her. She is a very simple and sweet goddess, and it would do us all good to put ourselves under her gentle training for a few of the hot weeks of summer. She would be pleased with our patronage, although she is a reputed Pagan goddess. She is no worse for that, as long as she is practical and poetical and teaches us how to make ourselves comfortable. ”

“ The fierceness and unrelenting cruelty of the ancient Assyrians, and the terror with which their swarming multitudes filled the inhabitants of the lands they invaded, have caused them to be likened to bees in their much-dreaded attacks on such as have aroused their anger: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ”

“ For the purposes of crystallisation, the fruit must be fresh, clear of all decay and blemish, and of the proper degree of ripeness. The chief thing to be done in this process is to extract the juice of the fruit and replace it in the pulp with liquid sugar, which, upon hardening, not only preserves the fruit from fermentation and decay, but retains it in its original form and consistency. ”

“ A thoughtful man, in strolling through the vast network of galleries at the Colonial Exhibition, cannot help feeling that there is some excuse for the national boast that ‘Britannia rules the waves,’ for all the treasures of the earth seem to be gathered together here. ”

“ The revival of bee-keeping and the conduct of the enterprise on scientific principles, will restore honey to its wonted place in the domestic economy; and if carefully studied and thriftily managed, the cultivation of bees and the product of honey may be made to form not only an important article of food and a considerable item of domestic revenue, but an ample source of amusement, and a means of recreation healthful alike to body and mind. ”

“ Simply, let us sit quietly if we can, and enjoy our siesta in a rather darkened room, with a pretty girl at the piano to sing for us, whilst we have our ‘hubble-bubble’ and rose-water or fragrant cigar and a pleasant book, till the cool of the evening. A considerable number of the dog-days are anything but hot ”

“ If immersed too long, the pulp is either over-cooked, or is left too dry and woody. If taken out too soon, the juices left in the pulp prevent perfect absorption of the sugar afterwards, and by eventually causing fermentation, destroy the value of the product. A skilful workman can tell by the colour and appearance of the pulp when it is properly ‘blanched.’ For the different grades of fruits, sugar-sirups of different degrees of density are required: the softer the fruit, the stronger the sirup required for its preservation. ”

“ Some few years ago, a loud outcry arose among our agriculturists that buyers from the other side of the Atlantic were purchasing all our best stock at prices far beyond what the British farmer could afford to pay. There is now the hope that we shall be recouped by the importation of mutton and beef of first-rate quality. The freezing process has now been brought to such perfection that, with meat from the English stock, it should afford us the opportunity of getting the best flesh food far cheaper than we can attempt to raise it for ourselves. ”

“ When boys, we ate more ices than we could afford; in maturity, we have the pocket-money—without the digestion. A lady in France thought that if strawberry ices were only sinful, no pleasure could exceed that which is to be enjoyed in the consumption of the pleasant fruit. ”

“ Then began a tremendous battle against wind and sea; Herbert dragging his oar through the water with that apparent ease and grace peculiar to men endowed with enormous muscular power; whilst Sam, who was pulling bow-oar, strained his sinewy arms and lithe body till, by their united efforts, the spray flew over the boat’s bow as she boldly dashed over, often through, the waves. ”

“ And though it may have fallen somewhat into disuse in these days, when many good things are overlooked, and when the artificial too often supplants the real, it may be safely predicted that the wide and rapid spread of bee-culture will induce a return to some of the wiser uses and methods and forms of adaptation employed by our early forefathers, as well as stimulate to new applications and new developments of its wondrous powers.
When and by whom mead or metheglin was first made from honey, could not be easily determined. ”

“ The ‘poor man’s oyster’ is so appreciated by our neighbours that Paris alone consumes some forty-nine tons daily, the best kind coming from Grenoble or Burgundy. The finest specimens are carefully reared in an escargotière, or snail-park, such as the poor Capuchin monks planned in bygone days at Colmar and Weinbach, when they had no money to buy food, and so cultivated snails. But the majority are collected by the vine-dressers in the evening from the stone heaps where the snails have assembled to enjoy the dew. ”

“ Hygeia promises (we are getting somewhat mixed with past and present) that she will befriend any one in the dog-days who follows her rôle, lives simply, eats the fruits of the season, and gives up a portion of carbonaceous food, which adds fuel to the internal fires. She will even bring Morpheus in her train, and tuck up a fellow who obeys her, and give him happy rest and sweet dreams,{482} without a headache in the morning. ”

“ The sirup having been prepared by dissolving the sugar in pure water, the fruit is immersed in it and left at rest for a certain period in large earthenware pans, glazed inside. The sirup penetrates the pulp, and gradually withdraws and replaces the remaining fruity juice, which, as it exudes and mingles with the transparent liquid, produces a certain filmy or clouded appearance, which marks the commencement of fermentation. ”