Month: September 2011

On Courtship and Matrimony Part 2

September 29, 2011

Ah so young love springs eternal!

At a juncture so critical in the life of a young inexperienced woman as that when she begins to form an attachment for one of the opposite sex at a moment when she needs the very best advice accompanied with a considerate regard for her overwrought feelings the very best course she can take is to confide the secret of her heart to that truest and most loving of friends her mother.

and who do we turn to for sound advice on matters of the heart?

Well not your parents in most cases, maybe a sibling but more than likely your friends who have little or no experience as well!!

Fortunate is the daughter who has not been deprived of that wisest and tenderest of counsellors whose experience of life, whose prudence and sagacity, whose anxious care and appreciation of her child’s sentiments, and whose awakened recollections of her own trysting days, qualify and entitle her above all other beings to counsel and comfort her trusting child, and to claim her confidence. Let the timid girl then pour forth into her mother’s ear the flood of her pent-up feelings. 

Friends in many ways have become family, some times even closer. Now that’s hardly surprising in today’s society where families are so fragmented as opposed to being the centre of community.

Let her endeavour to distrust her own judgment, and seek hope, guidance, and support from one who, she well knows, will not deceive or mislead her. The confidence thus established will be productive of the most beneficial results by securing the daughter’s obedience to her parent’s advice, and her willing adoption of the observances prescribed by etiquette, which, as the courtship progresses, that parent will not fail to recommend as strictly essential in this phase of life. Where a young woman has had the misfortune to be deprived of her mother, she should at such a period endeavour to find her next best counsellor in some female relative, or other trustworthy friend.

Again a trustworthy friend, these are a rare breed in my experience. Trust comes only over a number of years and experience…it’s far too easy to be let down by the people we trust and to find out they are pretenders but back to courting…

We are to suppose that favourable opportunities for meeting have occurred, until, by-and-by, both the lady and her admirer have come to regard each other with such warm feelings of inclination as to have a constant craving for each other’s society. Other eyes have in the meantime not failed to notice the symptoms of a growing attachment; and some “kind friends have, no doubt, even set them down as already engaged. The admirer of the fair one is, indeed, so much enamoured as to be unable longer to retain his secret within his own breast; and, not being without hope that his attachment is reciprocated, resolves on seeking an introduction to the lady’s family preparatory to his making a formal declaration of love. 

Ah a formal declaration of love…it could be none more romantic really. It usually involved:

a formal statement by a plaintiff specifying the facts and circumstances constituting his or her cause of action.

For example, from Mr Darcy to Miss Elizabeth Bennett

“You must know, surely you must know, it was all for you. You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke with my aunt last night, and it has taught me to hope as I’d scarcely allowed myself before. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I would have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love… I love… I love you. And I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.” – Spoken by Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Bit of a mouthful really when one hasn’t even had so much as a peck on the cheek but there is a certain charm about it!

But surprisingly after all that…

It is possible, however, that the lover’s endeavours to procure the desired introduction may fail of success, although, where no material difference of social position exists, this difficulty will be found to occur less frequently than might at Continue reading “On Courtship and Matrimony Part 2”

Sage and Onion Stuffing 1861

September 27, 2011

This is the best recipe for Sage and Onion I have ever tried and is now the one I always use.

Fresh herbs are a definite bonus and I would really recommend growing your own if you can. A window box will do but fresh sage is a must for this one.

Ingredients:

Onions
Fresh Sage
Bread crumbs
Butter (not a substitute)
1 egg

So readily all year round and can be used with (not only) Geese, Duck and Pork but also with Chicken and Turkey for the ultimate Victorian Sunday roast or Christmas dinner and beats the pants of any of the dried stuffing mixes you can buy…

From Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management 

Christmas Dinner accompaniments – Sage and Onion stuffing recipe

September 27, 2011

This is the best recipe for Sage and Onion I have ever tried and is now the one I always use.

Fresh herbs are a definite bonus and I would really recommend growing your own if you can. A window box will do but fresh sage is a must for this one.

Ingredients:

Onions
Fresh Sage
Bread crumbs
Butter (not a substitute)
1 egg

So readily all year round and can be used with (not only) Geese, Duck and Pork but also with Chicken and Turkey for the ultimate Victorian Sunday roast or Christmas dinner and beats the pants of any of the dried stuffing mixes you can buy…

From Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management 

Oxford Circus

September 27, 2011

I love looking at these old photos, im not quite sure what it is that draws me too them…they are so ordinary but seem to tell a story.

Oxford Circus 1888

This is Oxford Circus in 1888, a quite a chaotic scene and I can’t imagine getting from one side of the road to the other was either safe or fun.

It was the Earl of Oxford who developed the area but designed by John Nash. It became popular with its Victorian entertainers including bear-baiters and masquerades, and for entertainment venues such as the Pantheon.

Apples Snowball recipe

September 26, 2011

This wonderful desert comes from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management Published in 1861 and is guide to all aspects of running a household in the Victorian Era.

Its 2751 entries from tips on how to deal with servants’ pay and children’s health, and above all a wealth of cooking advice, instructions and recipes. It was an immediate best-seller, running to millions of copies within just a few years.

Isabella was born at 24 Milk Street, Cheapside, London. She was sent to school in Heidelbergin Germany and afterward returned to her stepfather’s home in Epsom, not too far from me really…!

On a visit to London, she was introduced to Samuel Orchard Beeton, a publisher of books and popular magazines, they married on 10th July 1856.

Soon after she began to write articles on cooking and household management for her husband’s publications and on it went from there. Sadly Mrs Beeton died at the young age of 28…I had always imagined she was a Mrs Bridges (Upstairs downstairs) type but no, she was a young house wife who brought help to millions in her book.

Now I have taken it upon myself to try some of the recipes and shall in time introduce them but i’ll start with this one as it is easy, very tasty and just a little bit different for dinner parties.

So gather the ingredients, all are readily available:

Rice pudding rice
Cooking Apples
Muscovado Sugar
Cloves
Muslin Cloth
String
and just follow the instructions.

I have cooked these at least 4 or 5 times and whilst quite filling they go very well with ice Cream.

Christmas Deserts – Apple Snowballs

September 26, 2011
Bramleys......

This wonderful desert comes from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management Published in 1861 and is guide to all aspects of running a household in the Victorian Era.

Its 2751 entries from tips on how to deal with servants’ pay and children’s health, and above all a wealth of cooking advice, instructions and recipes. It was an immediate best-seller, running to millions of copies within just a few years.

Isabella was born at 24 Milk Street, Cheapside, London. She was sent to school in Heidelbergin Germany and afterward returned to her stepfather’s home in Epsom, not too far from me really…!

On a visit to London, she was introduced to Samuel Orchard Beeton, a publisher of books and popular magazines, they married on 10th July 1856.

Soon after she began to write articles on cooking and household management for her husband’s publications and on it went from there. Sadly Mrs Beeton died at the young age of 28…I had always imagined she was a Mrs Bridges (Upstairs downstairs) type but no, she was a young house wife who brought help to millions in her book.

Now I have taken it upon myself to try some of the recipes and shall in time introduce them but i’ll start with this one as it is easy, very tasty and just a little bit different for dinner parties.

So gather the ingredients, all are readily available:

Rice pudding rice
Cooking Apples
Muscovado Sugar
Cloves
Muslin Cloth
String
and just follow the instructions.

I have cooked these at least 4 or 5 times and whilst quite filling they go very well with ice Cream.

Authentic Victorian Christmas Decorations Part 1

September 25, 2011

Well with less than 4 months to go I bet you are panicking about Christmas already…well maybe not!!

However if you wish to go an authentic Victorian Christmas now is the time to start.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

From Cassell’s Household Guide: A Complete Encyclopaedia of Domestic and Social Economy and forming a guide to every department of practical life. Volume 1 

If you want to create so authentic Victorian Christmas decorations then the place to turn to is a household guide of the time and Cassell’s is just one of many that would’ve been available to those who could afford it.

The materials to be used include all kinds of evergreens, everlasting flowers, and coloured and gilt papers.

It is a strange thing that, though mistletoe is used in the decoration of houses, not a sprig of it is put into a church. But in house decoration no Christmas would be thought complete if there did not hang in hall or dining-room a bunch of its curiously-forked leaves may be applied with excellent effect in wreaths, or overlapping one another in borders. The variegated aucuba makes a pleasing variety in the colour. Yews and arbour vita are useful; especially the small sprays of them, for covering the framework of devices. Myrtle and box also are pretty in narrow bordering’s, into which coloured everlasting flowers may be introduced.

The black bunches of ivy berries may sometimes be used with advantage, to give points of contrast in the decorations. Of course if chrysanthemum branches with their terminal pairs of nerveless pale-green leaves, and white crystalline berries. Holly is of course the special tree of the season. Its leaves bent into various curves, its thorny points, and its bunches of coral-red berries, make it the prince of evergreens.

Let it be conspicuous throughout the decorations. It is a good plan to strip off the berries, and use them strung in bunches, as the berries get hidden when the sprigs arc worked into wreaths and devices, and the berries, bent into little bunches, dotted about the festoons here and there, look very effective.

Ivy must be introduced with care. Small single leaves come in with good effect in small devices, or to relieve a background of sombre yew or arbor vita. The young shoots of the common ivy are best, or of the kind which grows up trees and old walls, which are very dark and glossy, with a network of light-coloured veins. Laurel is a very useful green in sprays, and the single

Christmas roses, primulas, and camellias can be obtained, the general effect is heightened and the decoration becomes more elaborate and more elegant.

The best wreaths for decorating the banisters of a house, or any pedestals, pillars, or columns, are those made in a rope of evergreen sprigs.

There are several ways in which such wreaths are made. One way is as follows: Get a rope or stout cord, of proper length, and a quantity of twine and a handful of evergreen twigs. Begin at one rope, which should be attached firmly to Dispose a bunch of the twigs round the rope, and tie them on with the twine; then dispose another bunch so that the leaves may conceal the stalks of those already on, and give the twine a turn round them, fastening it with a running knot, and so on until the rope is finished. This must be done at the fastening of each bunch of twigs. Another way very frequently adopted is, in place of a rope, to use only a piece of stout twine to run end of the something through the wreath, so as to prevent its falling to pieces, and, instead of twine to tie the twigs on, to use fine wire, which must be firmly twisted round the twigs.

On Courtship and Matrimony Part 1

September 25, 2011

Marriage, relationships and of course courting as it was called in the Victorian Era. The root of the word courting comes from “behavior of a courtier” Meaning ‘paying court to a woman with the intention of marriage and is from 1590s.

So here is so fine wisdom from Routledges, so let us look at the First Steps in Courtship:

We will take it for granted, then, that a gentleman has in one way or another become fascinated by a fair lady possibly a recent acquaintance whom he is most anxious to know more particularly. His heart already feels “the inly touch of love,” and his most ardent wish is to have that love returned.

Ah the course of young love, the chase, the catch or in my case flea in the ear and the disappointment! The course of true love rarely runs smoothly, from my own experience it really can be a nightmare (I am happily married now by the way).

In my younger days I was rebuffed for marriage once and it was heartbreaking but I wonder if we hadn’t embarked on a sexual relationship so quickly that rebuffing may not of happened.

Maybe some thing advice could still be of sound use:

At this point we venture to give him a word of serious advice. We urge him, before he ventures to take any step towards the pursuit of this object, to consider well his position and prospects in life, and reflect whether they are such as to justify him in deliberately seeking to win the young lady’s affections, with the view of making her his wife at no distant period. Should he after such a review of his affairs feel satisfied that he can proceed honourably, he may then use fair opportunities to ascertain the estimation in which the young lady, as well as her family, is held by friends.

To be honest I never had a clue how to attacrt the ladies, thankfully God blessed me and I was am/was not a bad looking chap but if I had looked like some sort of jack-pine savage…well what then!!

It is perhaps needless to add, that all possible delicacy and caution must be observed in making such inquiries, so as to avoid compromising the lady herself in the slightest degree. When he has satisfied himself on this head, and found no insurmountable impediment in his way, his next endeavour will be, through the mediation of a common friend, to procure an introduction to the lady’s family. Those who undertake such an office incur no slight responsibility, and are, of course, expected to be scrupulously careful in performing it, and to communicate all they happen to know affecting the character and circumstances of the individual they introduce.

Of course it’s always nice to find out if the young lady you are attracted to that reciprocates as it tends to cut out the inevitable kick in the teeth, embarrassment and broken heart that we would much sooner avoid… and so to the fairer sex…

We will now reverse the picture, and see how matters stand on the fair one’s side. First let us hope that the inclination is mutual; at all events, that the lady views her admirer with preference, that she deems him not unworthy of her favourable regard, and that his attentions are agreeable to her. It is true her heart may not yet be won: she has to be wooed; and what fair daughter of Eve has not hailed with rapture that brightest day in the spring tide of her life? She has probably first met the gentleman at a ball, or other festive occasion, where the excitement of the scene has reflected on every object around a roseate tint.

Sadly it tends to be at a pub or a club and the roseate tint tends to be vast amounts of alcohol nowadays.

We are to suppose, of course, that in looks, manner, and address, her incipient admirer is not below her ideal standard in gentlemanly attributes. His respectful Approaches to her in soliciting her hand as a partner in the dance, &c. have first awakened on her part a slight feeling of interest towards him. This mutual feeling of interest, once established, soon “grows by what it feeds on.” The exaltation of the whole scene favours its development, and it can hardly be wondered at if both parties leave judgment “out in the cold” while enjoying each other’s society, and possibly already pleasantly occupied in building “castles in the air.” Whatever may eventually come of it, the fair one is conscious for the nonce of being unusually happy.

The thrill of first meetings, getting to know each other…that wonderful butterfly feeling when you first fall in love. I believe that still exists today…

This emotion is not likely to be diminished when she finds herself the object of general attention accompanied; it may be, by the display of a little envy among rival beauties owing to the assiduous homage of her admirer. At length, prudence whispers that he is to her, as yet, but a comparative stranger; and with a modest reserve she endeavours to retire from his observation, so as not to seem to encourage his attentions. The gentleman’s ardour, however, is not to be thus checked; he again solicits her to be his partner in a dance. She finds it hard, very hard, to refuse him; and both, yielding at last to the alluring influences by which they are surrounded, discover at the moment of parting that a new and delightful sensation has been awakened in their hearts.

Ah that fantastic moment of mutual understanding and excitement…if only we could keep that for a life time!

Where does the root of the word Christmas come from?

September 25, 2011

“Christmas” (pronounced Kris’mas) signifies “Christ’s Mass,” meaning the festival of the Nativity of Christ, and the word has been variously spelt at different periods.

The following are obsolete forms of it found in old English writings: Crystmasse, Cristmes, Cristmas, Crestenmes, Crestenmas, Cristemes, Cristynmes, Crismas, Kyrsomas, Xtemas, Cristesmesse, Cristemasse, Crystenmas, Crystynmas, Chrystmas, Chrystemes, Chrystemasse, Chrystymesse, Cristenmas, Christenmas, Christmass, Christmes.

So this is the basis for the celebration of the Nativity and if you want to remember what Christmas means where is W.F. Dawson’s own way:

Christmas blest Feast of the Nativity!
H  eaven made thy lowly shrine
R  esplendent with the gift of the eternal Deity
I   n whom we live and move, whose large benignity
S  pared not His Son divine:
T  hat well-beloved Son by God was given,
M ankind to save with His redeeming blood;
A  nd Jesus freely left the bliss of Heaven,
S  uffering death, to achieve our lasting good

As I said (unlike today) the Victorians were a very religious people some going to Church three, four or five times on a Sunday and Christmas was a special time for them.

But it was Charles dickens who really brought forth the Christmas we know with the success of ‘A Christmas Carol’, a wonderful book that digs at greed and poverty of the Victorian age, shows us scrooge as a:

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. 

and it is Scrooge who brings the idea that anyone can change!

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world.

You can read ‘A Christmas Carol’ By Charles Dickens Here

The Green Baize of Glory

September 24, 2011

Snooker that is!

Snooker derived from billiards and originated in India during the later half of the Victorian Era.

I have to say I am a keen snooker player and have been playing since I was old enough to reach the table.

Variations on the traditional billiard games were devised by Army officers stationed in India but in particular came about in the officers’ mess in Jabalpur (a city in the Mahakaushal region of state of Madhya Pradesh in central-east India). during the mid 1870’s when different coloured balls were added to the reds and black which were used for pyramid pool.

The term snooker appears to have been coined by Sir Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain himself joined the Central India Horse (The Central India Horse – 21st King George V’s Own Horse was a regular cavalry regiment of the British Indian Army. They were formed at the start of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857) in 1876, taking the game with him.

Tradition has it that when one of the players failed to hole a coloured ball, Chamberlain shouted to him: ‘Why, you’re a regular snooker.’ (a snooker being the term used for a first-year cadet at the Academy) He then pointed out the meaning and that they were all ‘snookers’ at the game. The name seemed to name itself!

After being wounded in the Afghan War, he moved to Ooatacamund and the game became the specialty of the ‘Ooty Club’ with rules being posted in the billiards room and still today any snooker club worth it’s salt will have the snooker rules adorning it’s wall.

Continue reading “The Green Baize of Glory”