Lady Jersey

“ To English society her absence will be a terrible loss, as, with the utmost simplicity of high breeding, she is the one person left in England who is capable of holding a salon and keeping it filled, to the advantage—in every best sense—of all who enter it. Nothing can be more charming than the relation of Lord and Lady Jersey to their children, and the fact that the latter were always of the party, yet never in its way, was the greatest testimony to their up-bringing. The weather was really hot enough for the luxury of open windows everywhere and for sitting out all day. ”

“ Jersey's ministrations and the interest of the place gave a welcome relief. Dolly tried to put off thought. But everything pressed upon her, now that she was so near seeing her father; and seventeen-years-old felt as if it had a great load on its young shoulders.
"Mrs. Jersey," she began, after supper, "you are quite sure that it is never right for a girl to sacrifice herself for the sake of benefiting her parents?"
"In the way of marrying a man she does not love? Miss Dolly, a Christian man would never have a young lady marry him on those terms." ”

“ The greatness of her charm certainly lies in the absence of charm: no one ever had less of it. But what bright intelligence, what acute perceptions, what genuine kindness, what active beneficence! I found Julia, Lady Jersey, here, and Mr. Brandling, and a Mr. and Mrs. Bramston, relations of the Cleveland family. After dinner, the Duchess made me sit exclusively by her, saying kindly that she could not waste any of my short visit. She talked in a very interesting way of the great Duke of Wellington, and then of the present Duke. ”

“ Frances, Countess of Jersey, beloved by George IV., who was sent to meet Queen Caroline and persuaded her to eat onions—‘There is nothing the king likes so much as the smell of onions’—and Sarah, Countess of Jersey, the queen of Almack’s, a huge noble picture by Lawrence. Joining the village church is the mortuary chapel which she built, with her tomb, a copy of the Scipio tomb at Rome, and lovely medallions of her daughters, Sarah, Princess Esterhazy, and Lady Clementina Villiers. The font is said to have been that of Edward the Confessor at Islip, but is of Gothic, not Saxon date. ”

“ Miss McCroke has nothing to do with the question. You roaming about the world with a superannuated governess would be too preposterous. I am going to take you to Jersey by this evening's boat. I have an aunt living there who has a fine old manor house, and who will be happy to take charge of you. She is a maiden lady, a woman of superior cultivation, who devotes herself wholly to intellectual pursuits. Her refining influence will be valuable to you. The island is lovely, the climate delicious. You could not be better off than you will be at Les Tourelles. ”

“ Moore, a Scotch lady, gave the Society her property on the corner of Bergen and Fairview avenues, in consideration of a home in the institution for the remainder of her [Pg 119] life. They have added to the building, and it is now a comfortable home for a large number of old ladies. The Catholic Societies support the St. Michael's, St. Joseph and St. Mary's Orphan Asylums, each with a school connected.
One of the most beneficent institutions of Jersey City is the Social Settlement, the Whittier House, founded by Miss Cornelia Bradford, in the old Clark house, 179 Grand street, in May, 1894. ”

“ Jersey City owes to this gifted woman a debt of gratitude, not alone for her influence in awakening a love for science and literature among the young people, but for forming the Æsthetic Society, and in bringing hither the most celebrated people of the day, both American and foreign visitors, to our shores. She developed an interest among Jersey City women in intellectual pursuits which has grown and deepened with the years. ”

“ The handsome Jersey people were not traveling that day—the two friends had a theory about the relation of a sandy soil to female beauty—and when the artist got out his pencil to catch the types of the country, he was well rewarded. There were the fat old women in holiday market costumes, strong-featured, positive, who shook their heads at each other and nodded violently and incessantly, and all talked at once ”

“ When first we practise to deceive!
So to the story.
In the early sixties of the last century, there dwelt in the pleasant town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a prosperous and respected harness-maker by the name of Alexander M. W. Ball. He was a devoted husband and father, something of a personage since he had made the long voyage to California and back a few years before, well thought of by his neighbors, and possessed of enough political influence to secure an election to the New Jersey legislature.
But the thing of which he was proudest was his reputation as a poet. ”

“ The 4th earl’s son, George, 5th earl of Jersey (1773–1859) , one of the most celebrated fox-hunters of his time and a successful owner of racehorses, married Sarah Sophia (1785–1867) , daughter of John Fane, 10th earl of Westmorland, and granddaughter of Robert Child, the banker. She inherited her grandfather’s great wealth, including his interest in Child’s bank, and with her husband took the name of Child-Villiers. Since this time the connexions of the earls of Jersey with Child’s bank has been maintained. ”

“ Jersey, perhaps, more charming than Guernsey, prettier if less imposing; in Jersey the forest has become a garden; the island is like a bouquet of flowers, of the size of London, a smiling land, an idyll set in the midst of the sea.
The exile soon learns that, though the tyrant has placed him afar, he does not release his hold. Many and ingenious are the snares laid for the banished. A prince calls on you, but though he is of royal blood, he is also a detective of police. A grave professor stays at your house, and you surprise him searching your papers. Everything is permitted against you ”

“ JERSEY CITY WOMAN'S CLUB.
In 1894 was formed the Jersey City Woman's Club, which has a membership of over two hundred and is unlimited. It is a department club, its several sections being Education, Woman's Exchange, Philanthropy, Town Improvement, Home, Literature, Music and Art. "Its object shall be to awaken interest in subjects which especially concern women; to stimulate inquiry in questions of public significance, and to promote effort toward social and educational advancement. ”

“ In these qualities, New Jersey girls have never shown themselves behind their sisters of other parts of the country, and a very good proof of this is shown by an incident which took place near Morristown during the time that the American army was quartered in that neighborhood. ”

“ Chapter XIX TO JERSEY WITH A THIEF
The night's boat was the Ella. When the train drew to a standstill and the passengers got out Bertie supposed that their journey was at an end. His ideas as to the whereabouts of Jersey were very vague indeed. He was surprised, therefore, when the captain, taking his hand, led him along the gangway to the boat. The stars were shining brightly overhead, but midnight never is quite as light as noon, and in the uncertain light he could neither see nor understand where it was that they were going. ”

“ For the sake of your State—for the sake of her reputation throughout the world—for your own sakes—and those of your children, and their children yet to be—say to the world that New Jersey shares in the spirit of this age,—that New Jersey is not a survival of the Dark Ages,—that New Jersey does not still regard the thumbscrew as an instrument of progress,—that New Jersey needs no dungeon to answer the arguments of a free man, and does not send to the penitentiary, men who think, and men who speak. ”

“ In Jersey the custom of five hundred years ago still reaches out and binds; and so small is the place that every square foot of it almost—even where the potato sprouts, and the potato is Jersey's greatest friend—is identified with some odd incident, some naive circumstance, some big, vivid, and striking historical fact. Behind its rugged coasts a little people proudly hold by their own and to their own, and even a Jersey criminal has more friends in his own environment than probably any other criminal anywhere save in Corsica ”

“ An interesting feature of the city, and one that is a matter for congratulation, adding, as it does, to the historic interest of the town, and is a connecting link between the city of to-day and the early settlers who founded here the first village in New Jersey, is the fact that there are still in the limits of Jersey City quite a number of old houses built upon the Dutch plan, although there are but few dating beyond the present century. The Gautier house, on New York Bay, for some years the home of the Greenville Yacht Club, was built in 1760 by Captain Brown, and called "Retirement Hall." ”

“ Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, is situated in a deep bay of the French coast, from which it is distant twenty miles. Its extreme length from east to west is twelve miles, its breadth six. The island is fertile and beautiful, it enjoys a mild and salubrious climate; the coast is studded with granite rocks, and indented by small bays, which add greatly to the beauty of the scenery. The chief town is St. Helier's,—its principal trade is with Newfoundland: ship-building is carried on extensively. The natives are kind, but thrifty and parsimonious. ”

“ Such lives have no place here. Get you back to my Isle of Jersey, where ye may live in peace. Here all is noise, self-seeking, and time-service. If ye twain are not happy I will say the world should never have been made.”
Before they left Greenwich Palace—M. Aubert and Angèle, De la Forêt, Lemprière, and Buonespoir—the Queen made Michel de la Forêt the gift of a chaplaincy to the crown. To Monsieur Aubert she gave a small pension, and in Angèle’s hands she placed a deed of dower worthy of a generosity greater than her own. ”

“ And just before Christmas she was startled to receive a note from the tailoress, saying she had heard from her little girl at last. She had run away to be an actress, because life in New Jersey was too dull and lonely. She had sent her mother a little money and a pretty picture of herself, and begged her not to be angry, but she was touring in California now, and it would be a long time before she came home again.
“In California—Charley’s own State. It looks suspicious,” muttered Rosalind, and she went over to the cottage to visit Mrs. Vining again. ”

“ We, who come to woo Nature—for we love her with all the pure idolatry of a Thomson or a Davy—select the bye-lanes and the meadow paths. Yet even here we loiter not, although these garden meads of Jersey are the very choicest spots for the secluded rambles of lovers and the joyous festa of gipsying, especially when the warm south-west blows over the Atlantic.
But running water is well-nigh a blank in Jersey. As in all small islets, the rivulets are quiet little runnels rippling down from springs on the northern brow, and stealing south straight into the bays ”

“ He gets annoyed, and never can see the use of having different names for stations in Jersey. By and by. there is Newark, three or four Newarks apparently; then marshes; then long rock cuttings devoted to the advertisements of 'patent medicines and ready-made, clothing, and New York tonics for Jersey agues, and Jersey City is reached.
On the ferry-boat Philip bought an evening paper from a boy crying "'Ere's the Evening Gram, all about the murder," and with breathless haste—ran his eyes over the following:
SHOCKING MURDER!!! ”

“ The surface of the country is broken by winding valleys having a general direction from north to south, and as they approach the south uniting so as to form small plains. The lofty hedges which bound the small enclosures into which Jersey is divided, the trees and shrubberies which line the roads and cluster round the uplands and in almost every nook of the valleys unutilized for pasturage or tillage, give the island a luxuriant appearance, neutralizing the bare effect of the few sandy plains and sand-covered hills. Fruits and flowers indigenous to warm climates grow freely in the open air. ”

“ Those who have never experimentally proved what riches the landscape-loving eye counts for its own in this portion of the State may still hold to the calumnious tradition that all Jersey is flat and unprofitable to the searcher for the beautiful in pictorial nature. There is no hilltop of this gracious country that does not rise to salute some yet more sightly hill ”

“ The christening hung fire from week to week, everybody calling him anything, until New Year's. It had to stop here. Returning from the city New Year's day I found, posted on the stand of my table-lamp, the cognomen done in red, this declaration:—
January 1, 1915
No person can call Jersey any other name but JERSEY. If anybody calls him any other name but Jersey, exceeding five times a day he will have to clean out his coop two times a day. ”

“ So I got my forces together, and we waited for these fellows. We've got 'em, too! Every one of 'em!" he added proudly. "Lock 'em up, men!" he ordered. "We'll show these fellows what Jersey justice is like. Take 'em away." ”

“ In short, our impressions of Jersey have tended much to corroborate in our minds the poet’s dictum, that
God made the country, and man made the town;
for while the town is a huge seething kettle of corruption, the country is a labyrinth of loveliness. It is a labyrinth of lanes all arched by trees and fringed by lush herbage, and with certain lights presenting little fantastic avenues of fairy beauty. ”