Pellicle

“ The women wear bunchy grass petticoats, a girdle of leaves, a wisp of cloth, or nothing at all, except, of course, their ornaments; the men, a wisp of cloth, a shell, the string costume—a piece of string passed round the waist and between the legs—or are absolutely nude. They too, however, wear ornaments of various sorts, and often of great interest and beauty, in the way of head adornments, armlets, anklets, breast ornaments, and ear ornaments. Sometimes they carry their pipe and other things in the ear or under the armlet. They all appear, especially when nude, quite suitably dressed. ”

“ No man cast his pylche away. A ‘pilch’ was a large outer tippet made of fur, and worn in winter. The modern ladies’ ‘pelisse’ is but another form of the same root. Speaking of furs, however, we must not forget our ‘Furriers,’ and once common ‘Pelters’ and ‘Pellipers.’ They were engaged in the preparation of the more furry coats of the wilder animals. In the Hundred and other Rolls 346mention is frequently made of such names as ‘Geoffrey le Pelter’ or ‘Reyner le Peleter.’ A ‘pell’ or ‘pelt’ was any undressed skin. ”

“ No woman ever appears in public without the pelele, except in times of mourning for the dead. It is frightfully ugly to see the upper lip projecting two inches beyond the tip of the nose. When an old wearer of a hollow bamboo ring smiles, by the action of the muscles of the cheeks, the ring and lip outside it are dragged back and thrown above the eyebrows. The nose is seen through the middle of the ring, amid the exposed teeth show how carefully they have been chipped to look like those of a cat or crocodile. ”

“ To enforce this still further, if a line were to be drawn by a pencil exactly where these wires have been supposed to pass, the point of the pencil, in the muscular leg and thigh, would perpetually meet with stops and rubs, whilst in the others it would flow from muscle to muscle along the elastic skin, as pleasantly as the lightest skiff dances over the gentlest wave. ”

“ Here, in a little shell-sand, were six perfect specimens, the valves united and closed, or each what children call a 'box.' Imagine an almost transparent pearl, the size of a grain of mustard seed, suffused with opaline gleams, and covered with exquisite latticed and bead-like sculpture. It wants nothing but size to rival the most splendid exotics. ”

“ During this amatory performance the cock stretches out his neck, raises and spreads out his wings like a fan, ruffles his feathers, and assumes an appearance which has been compared to that of an angry turkey. A call, which has been expressed by the words peller, peller, peller, is uttered with continually increasing rapidity, and concludes with a gulp and an indrawing of the breath, when the bird throws up his head, closes his eyes, and appears to be in a paroxysm of passion. ”

“ In dressing the hair the men expended as much care as women, and took as much pride and pleasure in its neat and fashionable adjustment. It was shaved off to the very skin, except around the temples and low down in the back of the neck, from which it was brought up on all sides to the top of the head and fastened by a string. ”

“ The women are equally fastidious with the men, but have in addition a most singular ornament called the “pelele.” This is a ring that is not fixed into the ear or nose, but into the upper lip, and gives to the wearer an appearance that is most repulsive to an European. The artist has illustrated its form and effect, in an engraving on page 357. The pelele is a ring made of ivory, metal, or bamboo, nearly an inch in thickness, and variable in diameter, sometimes measuring two inches across. ”

“ The girl, spreading herself to the best advantage, with her head upon the pillow, was so concentered in that she was about, that our presence was the least of her care and concern. Her petticoats, thrown up with her shift, discovered to the company the finest turned legs and thighs that could be imagined, and in broad display, that gave us a full view of that delicious cleft of flesh, into which the pleasing hair, grown mount over it, parted and presented a most inviting entrance, between two close hedges, delicately soft and pouting. ”

“ The lines of the junctions of the plaster may be seen in a photograph; one is along the collar bone, and one across the junction of the body and the thighs. There is also a division all round the figure, an inch or so from the outline, so we know that the beautiful and highly finished head and neck were painted in one day; the stupendous torso and arms in another; and the huge legs, finished in every detail, in a third. Such power of work and of finish is utterly inconceivable to any artist of to-day. ”

“ But not for me the Royal Pearls to bind about my hair,
"Pearls were too passionless," you said, for one like me to wear,
I must have all the splendour, all the jewels warm as wine,
But pearls so pale and cold were meant for other flesh than mine. ”

“ Let's Whisper, that blade is very becoming to tall slender ladies with white skin and copper hair, even when they wear thick veils. Nothing suits them better, unless it's pale blue, and blue pearls. But ladies with golden hair have now taken to appearing in blue pearls—ropes of them. The 'Whisperer' supposes they are real. ”

“ When the girl is very young, the upper lip is pierced close to the nose, and a small pin inserted to prevent the orifice from closing. When the wound is healed, the small pin is withdrawn, and a larger one introduced; and this plan is carried on for years, until at last the full-sized “pelele” can be worn.
The commonest sort of pelele is made of bamboo, and is in consequence very light. When a wearer of this pelele smiles, or rather tries to smile, the contraction of the muscles turns the ring upward, so that its upper edge comes in front of the eyes, the nose appearing through its middle. ”

“ Hairpins bothered where her head rested against his shoulder. With her left hand she pulled them out. She shook her riotous chestnut tresses free and they fell about her oval face like the bacchanal crown of a Sybarite. The lad bent his head and buried his lips in them.
She was his—his! Such a night would never come again—could never come again—because this was the first. No thrust-and-parry, drooling calf-talk; no bids for sex-interest here.
Youth, nature and night were stripped to their framework. For this were the worlds made and the constellations hung infinitely. ”

“ When the spines, by which the creature moves, are stripped off, the projections and depressions of the testa, or shell, are often marked by great beauty of pattern; and it would have been hardly possible to bring into the service of plastic art a more appropriate group of natural models. ”

“ The strong light in the left-hand side of the picture must come from some window near by, for that side of the woman’s face and dress, and of the churn and handle, is brightly lighted. Most of the woman’s face, however, is indistinct, for Millet did not consider the features important and usually painted his faces in shadow. It is in what the men and women are doing and how they do it that he wished to interest us. ”

“ Probably nothing requires a sharper eye, a more delicate sense of color and greater patience, than the assembling of a finely matched string of pearls. Bearing in mind that size, shape, color, and perfection, must all correspond, it is not surprising that few strings exist which are above criticism. ”

“ The wider of the trousers, the fuller the skirts, the less shall we see of the difficult legs, says the young artist. But no matter how thick and frilly are the petticoats and how wide are the trousers, those difficult legs are not to be ignored. They must be traced lightly beneath the garments.
We cannot disguise the fact that if we are drawing human beings, two legs, two arms, and a head and body of reasonable proportions are essential for each. ”

“ A necklace and a pair of bracelets of fine pearls are the harmonious and true decorations for woman; instead of diverting the glance of the lover, they move him, make tenderness more tender—say to him—"No noise—let us love!" The pearl seems amorous of woman, and woman of the pearl. The ladies of the North, when they have once put on pearl ornaments, never afterwards remove them, but carry them day and night concealed beneath their attire. ”

“ Welcome back again, Pelle!
How wide and fair the world looks when you’ve spent years within four bare walls! Down in the south the clouds were like the breast of a great bright bird, one of those that come a long way every year with summer in the beat of their strong wings; and on all sides lay the open, white roads, pointing onward with bright assurances. ”

“ When it is to be used either a mass of it is taken in the palm of the hand and rubbed over the skin or other surface to be painted, or a pattern of fine lines is drawn with it by means of a stick used as a pencil. ”

“ The skins undoubtedly mark certain stages in the formation of the pearl, though the skin and the nacreous waves of which it is composed are often confounded. In the skinning of pearls an entire skin is seldom peeled off. The surface is scraped, a number of the component waves being taken off, until the luster is improved and it is then supposed that the entire outer skin has been removed. ”

“ Suddenly, and as if moved by some spontaneous and irresistible impulse, thirty or forty right arms, with pencils in hand, firmly clutched between their fingers, are rigidly extended towards the model, exhibiting an infinite variety of young ladies’ undersleeves, and gentlemen’s more sombre coat sleeves. ”

“ The day following, or at any time in the future, the superfluous hair and paper may be trimmed from the embryo pencil and a handle attached. A straight-grained piece of pine affords a good handle. Split in center of handle, insert the hair in the split, wrap tightly with stout linen thread, and the pencil is ready for use. In the making of the sword pencil there is often a superfluity of short hairs, of which it is desirable to be well rid. ”

“ Quick as thought, a slender knife leaps from the concealment of her dress, and flashes like a silver thread in the gloom. The arm is raised on high, the form drawn to its perfect height, the lip compressed, and the nerves braced, and then! ”

“ It is best to begin with the part nearest the centre, with the darkest shade of blue. Each stitch of one petal is parallel with the others and in a vertical direction; there is no radiation in [18] the working of individual petals, only in the arrangement of the petals themselves in the whole flower; and the edge of each shade is sharply defined by a voided line instead of melting or ‘shading’ into the next. A voided line is a narrow space of the ground left bare between the rows of stitches; it should be so narrow and so even as to look like a fine line or indentation in the silk. ”

“ A typical example of a fashionable perruque took the form of a densely-braided mass which covered the head as efficaciously as a mat, one large plait coming down at either side of the face, and curving round on the shoulder in the shape of an elephant's trunk. ”

“ In such a time of extravagance in fashion the additions one may make to any form of dress in the way of ribbons, bows, sewn pearls, cuts, slashes, and puffs are without number, and I can only give the structure on which such ornamental fripperies can be placed. The hair, for example, can be dressed with pearls, rings of gold, strings of pearls, feathers, or glass ornaments. Men and women wore monstrous earrings, but curiously enough [Pg 310] this fashion was more common to men than women. ”

“ There was a practice common among young people of peeling an apple in an unbroken peel, and throwing the peeled skin over the right shoulder in order to ascertain from the manner in which it fell, first, whether the person who threw it would be married soon, and second, the trade or profession of the person to whom they would be married. ”

“ Formerly this was done by skinning the pearl, i.e., removing the outer skin by peeling it carefully off with the edge of a sharp knife, an unsatisfactory method at best, as the under skin may not be good and if all the outer skin is not taken off, the broken edges of the layers composing the skin, mar the luster and color when the pearl is worn. Few also succeed in removing a skin without scratching the new one disclosed by its removal. ”

“ These superfine, magical touches are delicate strokes with a camel’s hair pencil at the corners of the eyebrows, the corners of the eyelids, corners of the nostrils and of the mouth, changing the angles up or down as may be required, and so changing the very shape of the features so delicately that the art cannot be detected. ”

“ Between a worked collar, which fell very low, and the border of the little cap, gathered in by a cherry-coloured riband, was seen a forest of beautiful hair, so accurately twisted and turned up that their roots were seen as clearly and as black as if they had been painted on the ivory of that lovely neck. ”

“ He wore a black cravat, loosely tied into a knot, and a red waistcoat elaborately trimmed with gold braid; a leather belt with a brass buckle and hanger, and huge sea-boots completed a costume singularly suggestive of his occupation in life. ”

“ A man-at-arms in breast-plate and steel cap, and bearing a long pike, paced up and down the length of this gallery, now and then stopping, leaning over the edge, and gazing up into the starry sky above; then, with a long drawn yawn, lazily turning back to the monotonous watch again.
A dark figure crept out from an arched doorway at the lower part of the long straight building, and some little distance below the end gallery, but the sentry saw nothing of it, for his back was turned. ”