Various

“ Indeed, the man who marries a wife, who condescends to his alliance, is seldom to be envied, and, though James Echlin’s sweet nature prevented his chafing under it, it was by no means good for him or for his children that the Lady Elgitha, in right of her superior knowledge of the world, and of her family connections, exercised the summum imperium in all household arrangements.
Of their eight children only two, Gilbert Manners, the eldest, and Elgitha Manners, the youngest, lived past infancy. ”

“ Need we say that this is the Church of St. Anastasia in Verona.
It would be impossible to give our girls anything like a description of the very interesting objects in this beautiful city, or adequately to express the feelings with which one wanders about its streets. It is said that “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,” and the man must indeed be a savage who would not feel the same soothing influence in looking at Verona.
Everything, from its sweet-sounding name, seems to breathe poetry and music into the mind. ”

“ No young soldier left the Crimea with greater distinction or greater promise than Michael Fenner, the son of a house which traced back its ancestors to the reign of Elizabeth, and to which honour and piety had always been dearer than riches. ”

“ To complete the picture, the whole is backed up by a venerable-looking church, with a low, tile-covered steeple and roof, plain enough but for a beautiful marble monument placed above the doorway. It is difficult to imagine anything more enchanting in the way of architecture than this extraordinary cemetery, filling up the centre of one of the small squares of the city. ”

“ Nothing will come amiss to us that in any way illustrates the domestic existence of our ancestors, and every reader, whatever her turn of mind, will be sure to find something worth taking note of.
It will be a different sort of narrative from the history of great men, or a tale of battles, sieges, and such-like imposing circumstances. We shall speak of houses and furniture, food and clothing, etiquette and good manners, wages and prices, education and superstition, household industries and household amusements, old recipes and domestic medicines, the ways of the poor and the ways of the rich. ”

“ Gian-Galeazzo Visconti was the founder of Milan Cathedral and the Certosa of Pavia, and, as before mentioned, a superb monument has been erected to his memory in the latter church; but this monument was more than half a century in construction, by which time the people had forgotten where the prince had been buried; and thus the body of this great man, who had defeated numberless armies and caused to be erected two of the most sumptuous buildings in Europe, lies no one knows where. ”

“ People do not sigh after what they have never either seen or heard of. We really find happiness in our affections—not in our material surroundings, which are of secondary importance; and it is not unreasonable to conclude that, as human nature is always the same, these ancestors of ours enjoyed life in their way quite as much as we do.
We start with the subject of houses and furniture. When Henry VIII. began to reign, well-to-do people in towns lived, as a rule, in houses built principally of timber, the fronts being often ornamented with rich carvings of fanciful and grotesque objects. ”

“ Captain Michael Fenner in active service, and with the modest fortune which he had inherited from his parents, thought it no indiscretion to marry the lady of his love, Margaret Echlin, the daughter of the Rector of Oldborough, a village in Warwickshire, which his family had lived in for many years, and people called her a lucky woman; for what distinction was impossible to a man who had already done so much and done it so well? ”

“ The son of Gian-Galeazzo ruled in Milan upon his father’s death, after which the Sforza family succeeded, and held power until the middle of the sixteenth century, when the emperor, Charles V., who was practical master of Italy, handed over the duchy of Milan to his son Philip.
After leaving the Certosa, the two bachelors hired one of the light one-horse carriages, of which there are always a number outside the church, and drove to Pavia. That drive was most pleasant. It was a lovely spring day, with a brilliant sun, though not too hot, and the country was all aglow with bright colour. ”

“ I thought what a pretty picture it would have made; the old red brick house with its ivy-covered gables in the background; the terrace with its sundial and antique vases; the girl in her white gown with her beautiful pets round her, her favourite blue pigeons eating out of her hand.
“Oh, auntie, may we come?” pleaded Joyce; and Miss Cheriton looked up at us and smiled and nodded, and Joyce snatched her sun-bonnet and in a few minutes we had joined her on the terrace. ”

“ In More’s house you would say that Plato’s Academy was revived again, only whereas in the Academy the discussion turned upon geometry and the power of numbers, the house at Chelsea is a veritable school of Christian religion. In it is none, man or woman, but readeth or studieth the liberal arts; yet is their chief care of piety. There is never any seen idle. The head of the house governs it, not by a lofty carriage and oft rebukes, but by gentleness and amiable manners. Every member is busy in his place, performing his duty with alacrity ”

“ This time there rises before us a series of lofty sculptured tombs, each crowned by a spire, surmounted by the figure of a man on horseback, separated from the roadway by some delicate metal work, wrought by the hand of a thirteenth-century blacksmith into a bewildering combination of quatrefoils, and supported by graceful marble columns, each bearing the image of a saint or angel. ”

“ Flaws of temper and other foibles which marred the perfection of those who were most familiar to us while they were tossed to and fro on the billows of this troublesome world, are forgotten for ever when the lines of care and thought are smoothed from the brow on which Death has laid his finger. ”

“ The Certosa is magnificently kept, and in order to make it even more “smart,” the old pavement has been replaced by a very bright mosaic one, which reflects the church like glass. But of all, the choir is the most magnificent, the tabernacle and altar-screen being sumptuous sixteenth century Renaissance work, and on either side of the altar the walls are decorated with rich sculpture.
In the transepts are two monuments, viz., those of Gian-Galeazzo Visconti, the founder of the church, and of Ludovico Moro and his wife, Beatrice d’Este. ”

“ Mother said you were a poor sort, and she wondered at Violet’s infatuation. She thought you stuck up and disagreeable, and not much to look at; a plain young woman, and very disrespectful. There, now!”
“Master Rolf,” I observed, calmly, and suppressing my inward wrath, “you call yourself a gentleman, but I assure you a savage shows more gentlemanly feeling than you. Don’t you know your mother’s words should be sacred, and you are bound in honour not to repeat them?” ”

“ She also was a good Latin scholar, spoke French and Italian as fluently as English, had a smattering of Dutch and German, and was a devourer of works on history.
These two princesses were the highest in station of the accomplished women of the time, but there were many who equalled, and some who surpassed, them in learning. The most remarkable of all for accomplishments was certainly Lady Jane Grey, afterwards the unfortunate queen of a ten-days’ reign. Lady Jane took so kindly to study that she became the marvel of the age for her acquirements. ”

“ Gilbert must stand the test of an examination; if he cannot satisfy the examiners, no amount of blue blood will avail him.”
“According to that, Mark will have the best chance in the world.”
“And everywhere else,” said the rector. “I only wish our Gilbert had half the chances of Margaret’s fatherless boy. Michael Fenner, though dead, has done more for his son than I for mine. Gilbert is selfish, idle, almost illiterate, and I look with shame on the virtues of my nephew who has had so much less done for him.” ”

“ For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it as it were in such weight, measure, and number—even so perfectly as God made the world—or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently, sometimes, with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways which I will not name for the honour I bear them ”

“ When he was well enough to leave his berth, he made friends with the captain and one or two of the passengers, who took a fancy to this fine, good-looking young man, who certainly looked exceedingly unlike a shepherd in the suit Mr. Leslie had bought him at a London tailor’s. His new friends lent him books, and he derived both pleasure and benefit from conversing with them, but yet, though he read and studied hard during the voyage, it was a terrible time to him, and no landsman ever rejoiced more at the sight of land than Jack did when they sighted the American coast. ”

“ Of the state of learning, in the houses at any rate of the upper classes, much is to be said that reflects credit on our ancestors. The royal court of Henry VIII., whatever might be its faults, did not neglect study. In the case of Prince Edward, afterwards Edward VI., devotion to his books no doubt had an injurious effect on his health, and there is no saying what might have been the result to England had he had less learning and more exercise. ”

“ Fenner that it would not be desirable for her to inhabit the house at Oldborough, for though it was a modest house enough for a family to live in, she felt herself unequal to manage the farm which belonged to it, and she knew that her pension would not enable her to keep it up comfortably, besides, before long it would be necessary for Mark at least to go to school, and the nearest town was ten miles from Oldborough. ”

“ Then Lady Elgitha, finding her son no nearer to a conclusion, decreed that he also should go to Cambridge; all her family who were not in the army had gone to Cambridge; but as Gilbert had not the gift of plodding, a smaller college, his father’s, Corpus, was chosen for him. Boys of his age seldom cared for the church; he would probably come round in a year or two, and then he would be in the right road for it.
Mark was sure to do well. He had had nothing to do at Sunbridge but work, whereas poor Gilbert had been so distracted at Eton by games, society, etc., etc. ”

“ It is not life at all; it is a daily round of harassing duties. Look what it has done for Violet—robbed her of spirits and bloom; she will be an old woman before her time. The fun is very well, but there is too much of it. I pined for fresh air, for the garden, and the bees, and my other pets. ”

“ We are not going to begin with the time “when wild in woods the noble savage ran,” and homes were in caves and under the shade of green trees; our starting-point is to be the reign of Henry VIII., and our first article will embrace that reign and the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Mary—in other words, from 1509 to 1558.
In those far-back days many things were different from what they are now. There has been a great advance in material comfort. Our forefathers, no doubt, had just as much wit and wisdom as we have ”

“ The question seems further from being solved as we wander through the streets and squares of the poetical city. Every step brings us in the presence of some wondrous recollection of the past, and there is nothing to fasten down our ideas to the present time. Fresh dreams arise in every street. ”

“ It is approached from the church by a magnificent white marble doorway.
The great cloister is very large, and is surrounded by cells, which remind one that the Certosa was once a monastery, and belonged to the Carthusians. This curious order of men never see one another, except in church. Each man has four rooms and a little garden entirely to himself. ”

“ I thought how much might be done for others with little cost if people would only think; it is want of thought that clogs usefulness. Great sacrifices are so seldom demanded from us; we are not now called upon to forsake all that we hold dear and follow the Christ—little daily duties, small hourly renunciations, pleasures given up for some cheerful loving service: these are the free-will offerings that all may yield, only the people must “give willingly.” ”

“ In an Act passed in the first year of Edward VI.’s reign we find the curate of every parish required, “on every Sunday and holiday, after reading the Gospel of the day, to make (according to such talent as God hath given him) a godly and brief exhortation to his parishioners, moving and exciting them to remember the poor people, and the duty of Christian charity in relieving of them which be their brethren in Christ, born in the same parish and needing their help.” ”

“ It almost appears as if in the Certosa the sculptors had been set to do the architecture and the painters to execute the sculpture; each has so attempted to overdo and over-elaborate his portion of the work that he has “strained” his art, until it has lost those wholesome restrictions which the æsthetic principles, both of classic and mediæval times, had placed upon it. ”

“ Leonardo da Vinci’s work in the gallery is one of very great interest, as it is a study for the head of the Saviour for his mighty work of the Last Supper.
As the evening approaches, we dine at one of the perfect ristoranti of Milan and proceed by rail to Verona. On our way we were captivated by the charming manners of the peasantry ”

“ However learning might flourish in the upper circles of society, it seems to have languished in the schools and among the people. But efforts were made in the direction of popular education, and more grammar schools it is said were founded in the latter part of Henry VIII.’s reign than in the three hundred years preceding.
Music was practised by all classes. Erasmus, who saw much of England in the beginning of the sixteenth century, speaks of the English as the most accomplished in the skill of music of any people. ”