--From La Belle assemblée--Hasty interment is still a prevalent custom in Russia; and even premature burials are said to be not quite unknown. A short time previous to my departure, the following horrid circumstance was related at St. Petersburgh...
--From La Belle assemblée--Now this care ought to he used in the time of manhood, that is, about the fortieth year of a man's age, when the beauty of a man is at the height.
--From La Belle assemblée--When Bonaparte had ascended the imperial throne, it is reported that he sent Engenius de Beauharnais to ask the hand of the royal widow; who returned a polite refusal.
Secured from the fear of foreign enemies by the same hand that has overturned and created kingdoms, this Princess dedicates all the blooming hours of her youth to a strict performance of the duties of her station, and all her cares to the prosperity of her subjects and the education of her children.
--From American register--...yesterday evening, the queen (to whom other states are to be assigned) departed hence with a train of between forty and fifty carriages, containing baggage and private property; after which the Etrurians were discharged from their oath of allegiance, and the government declared to be dissolved...
--From La Belle assemblée--All ceremony should he banished among epicures, especially at table. This is a truth, which we shall never cease to repeat; the reason is not difficult to define. In the first place, when epicurism is thoroughly established among people who meet for the first time, a close intimacy soon succeeds, for no formality can long exist between real lovers of the table. A similitude of tastes is ever acknowledged the best basis for friendship to rest on; real epicures also are seldom known to quarrel; they leave coolness, and dissentions to lovers, and live together like true children of Epicurus.
--From La Belle assemblée--My comrades, thought I, will laugh at me for alarming them by shooting a pig! I had almost resolved to let it alone, when, just as it approached the thicket, I thought I observed it give an unusual spring. I no longer hesitated:
I took my aim; discharged my piece; and the animal was instantly stretched before me with a groan which I conceived to be that of a human creature. I went up to it, and judge my astonishment, when I found that I had killed an Indian! He had enveloped himself with the skin of one of these wild hogs so artfully and completely; his hands and feet were so entirely concealed in it, and his gait and appearance were so exactly correspondent to that of the animal's, that, imperfectly as they were always seen through the trees and jungles, the disguise could not be penetrated at a distance, and scarcely discovered upon the nearest aspect. He was armed with a dagger and a tomahawk.
In 1807 they were looking back to the 15th century for helpful advice and inspiration. It sounds like a typical anti-male article, but sometimes when we look back in time we see the origins of things. This is how the story starts:HOW TO TAME A TURBULENT HUSBAND
A TALE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
--From La Belle assemblée--A Tradesman who lived in a village near St. Albans, had been twice married, and ill-treated his wives so as to cause their death. He sought a third, but as his brutality was well known in the place where he dwelt, he was obliged to go fifty miles off for a wife.
He obtained one, and after he brought her home, all the neighbours came to visit her, and acquaint her in what manner her husband used to treat his former wives. This somewhat surprised her, but she resolved to wait patiently till her lord and master might take it into his head to beat her. She did not wait long, for her husband was a terrible fellow.
--From La Belle assemblée--He had an only son, destined to be of a still more extraordinary character than his father, and who, in his early youth, having run away from school, and turned chimney-sweeper, in his mature age renounced his country, and turned mahometan.
--From La Belle assemblée--This lady composed the following vocabulary to express the character of a husband, from her own experience, and which proves how copious our language is on that article:—He is, said she, an abhorred, abominable, acrimonious, angry, arrogant...
...ireful, jealous, keen, loathsome, maggotty, malevolent, malicious...
...wrathful, yarring, yelping dug in a manger, who neither eats himself nor will let others eat.
--From La Belle assemblée--I was one day reproaching a Spaniard, lately arrived from Buenos-Ayres, with the cruelties which his countrymen had committed on their first conquests in America. I recalled to mind, with horror, the crimes which had tarnished the glory of a Cortez, a Pizarro, and many other heroes who have, perhaps, by their talents and valour, surpassed all that we admire in the ancients; and regretted, that so glorious an epocha in the Spanish history should be recorded on blood-stained pages.
My friend had hitherto listened to me with patience; a tear rolled down his cheek...
...let us not reproach each other: we have all been barbarians, but leave to history the melancholy employment of recording the crimes of our forefathers...
I watched a young mother the other day sowing seeds of trouble, mortification, exasperation, worn nerves, for herself; pain, rebelliousness, possibly permanent disfigurement, for her child. It filled my soul with wrath. What was she doing? Encouraging a habit; "cute," she called it, but one which she will some day know for what it is—pernicious to the last degree. This is the thumb-sucking habit.--From Good Housekeeping--
Every little girl has a corner in her heart set apart for paper dolls.... ...the plain, ordinary, old-fashioned paper doll which she can cut out for herself from magazines and fashion books.--From Harper's Bazaar--
...Mutton, pork, ham, and even venison all dance to the same music. Spinach, turnip-tops and other greens were boiled and baptized with grease. It was hog meat, hog meat everywhere; hog meat for breakfast, hog meat for dinner, hog meat for supper, always fried and served up in its own grease. A caustic observer says that the devil of indigestion holds full sway in certain localities because the frying-pan has a firm grip on the affections of the people. He complains of seeing tall, gaunt men, sallow faces like corpses, having perfect satisfaction with the country, a lack of strong high ambition; women, gaunt, haggard, and hopeless looking, all trace of womanly beauty long since gone, every line of their faces speaking of want, privation, neglect of all sanitary laws, and unvaried monotony of unwholesome food; little children, flabby, yellow, pallid, with old men's faces. This is not malaria, he says, but the frying-pan.--From Good Housekeeping--
Christmas is coming, bright, jolly Christmas-tide, with its attendant train of work and worry, surprises and delight, and every lady reader of Good Housekeeping is puzzling her brain to think of what to make for Christmas gifts, and it may be taken for granted that each one would be glad of a few hints on what to make and how to make it.--From Good Housekeeping--
There are so many dainty things for the adornment of modern tables, that come to my notice when I visit my friends on the main-land, from the exquisitely embroidered pieces for the center of the table, the napkins for the tea-pot and cups, for the carver, for the roast potatoes and for corn, for the bread and cake-plates, to the dainty doylies for the finger-bowls, that one becomes bewildered, hardly knowing what to choose.Many people think formal silverware is confusing, but there used to be all sorts of special plates, bowls and table linens that went along with it.
One can keep house with a few table-cloths...The magazine has hired a Quaker to give newlyweds some simple folk wisdom on how to set up a household. She'll cut down on the bewildering array of table cloths:
I would have one very handsome table-cloth, with large dinner napkins to match; one breakfast cloth, with napkins to match, which of course will be a smaller size; one lunchcloth, which can be colored, if preferred, with napkins to match; and to these can be added four other table-cloths and two dozen napkins, and two heavy table-cloths for kitchen use, which can be bought by the yard.There you go, you only really need nine table cloths.
