Originally published in the July 6th, 1895 issue of Home Chat by Lady Constance Howard, who also authored the book Etiquette, What to Do, and How to Do It, a free download from Archive.org.

Exciting and wealthy guests to ensure lively conversation. The Earl and Countess of Lathom, their sons, daughters, and beloved dogs.

Etiquette of Dinners

By Lady Constance Howard

Guests should be punctual. It is a terrible want of courtesy to arrive at 8.30 when eight o’clock is the hour specified; added to which, unpunctuality is unfair to the cook, and spoils the dinner.

To obtain the reputation of giving good and agreeable dinners, three things are necessary to produce a harmonious whole.

First, that your guests should be chosen to suit each other, and that the right lady should be sent in with the right gentleman, otherwise vexation of the spirit is the forerunner of the party.

Secondly, that they should be remarkable for something—either beauty, wit, talent, money—and that you should be certain of such a flow of light conversation that no one can be bored or feel in any way neglected.

Thirdly, that your dinner should be of the very best your means will afford; a good plain dinner without pretension, if your income is small, every delicacy of the culinary art, and the wine of the very best if you are blessed with much money. With these three necessities, the hostess may eat her dinner in comfort, secure in the knowledge that the verdict of her guests will be in her favour.

Two topics of conversation are best avoided— religion and politics; and the hostess who possesses tact will not discuss music or painting with persons who have no taste for either.

From 10.30 to eleven o’clock is the usual time for carriages to be ordered after a dinner party, unless the dinner is followed by a ball, concert, or other entertainment in the same house.

A lady’s cloak is taken from her in the hall by the butler, or she is shown into the cloak-room where the maid relieves her of it. The same with a gentleman, he leaves his hat and coat in the entrance-hall, or in the cloak-room, where there is one.

Ladies wear gloves at dinner parties, which they remove in the dining-room. It is not necessary for gentlemen to wear them.

A lady is received on entering the room by the host or hostess, and after her, welcome is accorded to her husband, son, or whatever gentleman accompanies her.

Guests are asked their names by the servant, and then announced to the host or hostess.  The host escorts the lady of highest rank to dinner; the hostess follows with the gentlemen of highest precedence.

No gentleman escorts two ladies, and relations do not go to dinner in couples; all relationship is lost sight of, precedency alone is thought of. If your dinner is to be a success, there should be a corresponding number of ladies and gentlemen; In England, etiquette requires that the lady a gentleman has escorted to dinner is placed on his right hand; abroad, she sits on his left.

At most dinner-parties there will be a “bore,” man or woman. No one will be a “bore” who notes the eyes and postures of those with whom he converses, and no one need force himself or herself habitually on the unwilling notice of others.

One menu is allowed to every couple, and should be placed in front of them, so as to be easily read.

Vintage ad for Jays Mourning Warehouse

Decoration Notes

It is not wise to copy some of the city fashions; for instance, one fashion followed in the city regarding windows. I call it “casket fashion.” In some streets of our great cities the windows from the first floor to the roof are draped with two sets of curtains and window shades of the purest white; the curtains are looped stiffly back with pure white satin ribbons. On looking at them my first impression is that there is a death in the house and that it is an infant or young person. I cannot help fancying that I smell funeral flowers. The casket-like draping of the windows is horrible and sends a chill through the frame of one who loves color and warmth. If white must be used, let it have a creamy tone, the deeper the better, and do have ecru or buff holland shades, and not dead-white, next to the glass. Avoid, also, the white satin ribbons.

Clip Art: Victorian Flower Pots

Hints on Window Gardening

Window gardening may now be carried out so very inexpensively, that it is a matter for surprise that a greater number of people do not dabble a little in this way to brighten their surroundings, and give pleasure, not only to their own home circle and to callers, but to the unknown passerby.

The most rudimentary knowledge of carpentering is enough to enable anyone to make a window-box, which may be covered with Virginia cork for a trifle; while any ironmonger will supply, for a few shillings a proper window-box, made of trellis-work, and lined, if desired, with a separate box of wood. When pots are used, however, the inner box is not required–and here I may mention the really beautiful art pots, that may be obtained at any of the large stores for about eighteenpence each. Five of these will generally suffice for any window.

It is well to have them of different colours–say one red, one blue, two yellow, and one brown, or one green in place of one of the yellow. Of course, individual tastes may be exercised, but the colours mentioned are always suitable.

The cherry-tree, as it is called, with its bright berries, is admirable for the window. Ribbon ferns, that have been kept indoors all the winter, may now be placed in the box. But you should, by this time, have a good show of bulbous flowers, that will flourish a feast of colour until the middle of May. Nothing is more lovely than a box of tulips of all colours, of which, perhaps, the red and the golden are the most st ricking, with a border of dwarf-hyacinths, or crocuses. Or you may fill the box with narcissi, jonquils, and hyacinths, to last until May is out, while daffodils of all kinds, both single and double, will flourish when potted. The pots I have mentioned are not to be filled with soil, but used as receptacles for the ordinary pots, which must be a little smaller in size. None of the flowers named require forcing; they can be grown in a living room or little conservatory, and may be interspersed with dwarf ferns, or other foliage.

The beautiful arum lilies may be placed safely out of doors at the end of April; if in pots, they may be carried indoors on cool evenings, but in sheltered situations, with a south aspect, this is not necessary. Soloman’s seal is a plant I should like to see used more largely for the window. It is singularly pretty and unique, and will thrive in any shady spot. It is a real pleasure to watch its graceful growth, and sweet, simple flowers. Needless, perhaps, to add, it should be used as a background to flowers of brighter colour and more dwarf habit. In my next I shall mention the plants that should follow in succession to the bulbs.

Vintage Illustration of Grace Darling

The Story of Grace Darling

By Mrs. Alice H. Putnam

One September night long ago, a steamer was sailing off the coast of Northumberland on her way to Dundee. The pilot had steered her safely until they were as far north as the Farne Islands. But here, the high winds and heavy seas, which the autumn weather often brings the sailor, drove the vessel onto a dangerous ledge of rocks, and she was broken almost in two. There were a good many passengers on the boat, and the captain, with his wife, and many others, were washed off the deck and dashed onto the rocks.

On one of these islands stood a tall light-house called the “Folkstone Light.” I suppose it was built of stone, bolted and riveted firmly to the solid rock, for that is the way most of the light-houses on the coast were made. Often the angry waves would beat against it as they rolled over the whole island, but the keeper was faithful, and from sunset to sunrise the bright light would shine far over the water, and was sometimes a comfort and sometimes a warning to the sailors.

The keeper, Mr. Darling, had a daughter who had grown to be a strong, brave girl—as much at home on the water as on the land. She could row and sail a boat as well as any man about there. It was a part of her work to help her father care for the lamps.

On this stormy night it must have carried hope to the poor half-drowned men to know that some one was near who would help them if possible.

When Grace Darling saw the danger the crew were in, she at once begged her father to get out the boats and go to the aid of the drowning men.

But Mr. Darling said “No, we dare not try it. The sea is too heavy; no boat could live in it. Wait until morning.” So hour after hour passed and Grace watched the dreadful storm with a sad heart, for she knew the men would soon grow too weak to cling to the rocks.

At last, towards morning, she said, “Father, I am going. I must at least try to do something for them; don’t say no.”

The father could not hold his brave child back, and she went alone in the little boat that was tossed like an egg-shell on the heavy sea, now up, up, on the top of a giant wave, and then down deep in the trough made between the waves. It was well, then, that Grace had gained a man’s strength by her rowing and swimming, or she never could have guided her boat so surely to the island, and steered safely around its dangerous, sharp rocks to the place where the steamer (or what was left of it) was wedged.

She was thankful to be able to save the lives of the nine sailors who, moment by moment, were growing weaker and less able to hold on to a place of safety. Grace carried them all back to the light-house in safety.
It was not long before people in other parts of England heard of the brave deed, and many letters and beautiful medals, in remembrance of her courage, were sent her. But she received them very quietly, saying that she had only done what she ought to do, and what any one with her strength ought to have done.

She lived some years after this, but though she has gone from here now, I think folks will always love to think of Grace Darling, the brave girl who risked her own to save other lives.

Victorian Easter Egg Made of China

Break out the bombazine and horse glue, because it’s time to decorate Easter Eggs, Victorian style!

From one of my favorite antique books comes these fine examples of Victorian Easter eggs. Household Elegancies, by Mrs. C. S. Jones and Henry T. Williams was published in 1877 and is full of amazing illustrations and advice on decorating every part of your home, including the humble egg. Click on the illustrations for a closer look, you may also use these images as Victorian Easter clip art if you wish.

With many it is a curious fancy, to dress Easter-eggs in elegant forms and keep as toilet elegancies, and we introduce several designs showing how this may be beautifully carried out, and result in charming effects.

This china egg is hollow and open at the dull end, so that it can be set up on end, or when given as a present, filled with candy or some valuable article, while it may be closed with a cork decorated with ribbon bows. Such eggs which have the not very poetic but certainly useful mission of helping in the darning of stockings, are generally white, a tempting subject for painting, to those who can skillfully wield a brush. But they may also be procured colored, and when decorated with ribbon bows, make a pretty and welcome Easter gift.

BOILED EASTER-EGG, WITH ETCHING

Example of an Etched Victorian Easter Egg

A very pretty Easter gift is a boiled colored egg, on which, as on colored porcelain, the most various designs, monograms, pictures and the like, may be etched with a fine penknife. As hard-boiled eggs do not decompose, this forms a durable mark of remembrance. The brown color on our model, is produced by boiling the egg in water filled with onion peels.

Victorian Easter Egg Hanging Basket

EASTER-EGG AS HANGING-BASKET WITH FLOWERS

Open a hen, duck, or goose egg at the pointed end; let all the contents run out, and cut the upper, smaller half away with small sharp scissors; fill it almost up with earth, and plant a sedum, which, despite the small space, thrives splendidly and spreads out its little twigs on every side. As outer decoration for this improvised flower-pot, a net-work of crochet suspended by cord made of chain-stitches, and trimmed with tassels, will do nicely. In the model, the net is crocheted of scarlet silk; Fringe is knotted in at the top, and a string drawn through to make the net fit firmly to the egg. Draw the net together at the bottom, and finish off with a tassel.

EASTER-EGG AS BONBONNIERE

This sweet little toy is made of a bonafide egg, cut through very carefully in the middle; the edges are furnished with a narrow binding of soft-colored paper, beneath which, for the sake of strength, a narrow strip of card-board is pasted. A strip of card-board, one-fifth of an inch wide, covered with the same colored paper, is pasted within one of the halves, partly projecting, and serves to close the two parts, as plainly seen in the illustration. The rest of the decoration consists of narrow gold braid pasted inside and out, at the edges of the paper binding. A skillful hand may easily execute a monogram, or wreath of flowers on the outside of the egg. Decalcomanie may also very suitably be employed.

Victorian Easter Egg Gift Basket

EASTER-EGG AS HOUSEWIFE

Materials: Tulle, zephyr worsted, white sewing-silk and crape, colored silk and watered ribbon three-fifths of an inch wide, narrow blond lace. As may be seen in the illustration, our model is provided with the necessary sewing-materials for embroidery. The outer decoration consists of tulle drawn through with zephyr worsted and sewing-silk, beneath which, the tulle is almost hidden, leaving a peculiar sort of net-work. The pattern of this pretty design is worked of worsted and cross-stitches of white sewing silk. We would here mention that this work is very suitable for children’s hats. For each of the two oval halves of the necessaire, work a piece of tulle seven and one-fifth inches long, and five and one-fifth inches wide; round it at the corners; line it with blue or pink silk, and baste it to a piece of card-board. The outer rim is then marked at even distances, into twelve parts; between these cut out points one-fifth of an inch wide, one and one-fifth inches deep. Bind the incisions with silk ribbon; by drawing them together the arched form is produced; tack in the silk lining; wire it on the edge, and finish off with a binding of ribbon. Ornamental stitches of colored silk decorate the outer side; the inner margin is finished off by a narrow blond lace. The piece that covers the rims is to be fastened to one of the perfectly equal parts, and consists of a strip of card-board two-fifths of an inch wide; it is covered on the inside with silk, on the outside with white crape taken four-fold; it is edged on either side with button hole stitches, and decorated along the center with herring-bone stitches. Two pretty bows, one within and one without, conceal the spot where the parts are connected, and ribbon serves to tie the halves together.

Victorian Easter Egg Gift Box

Safety-Pin Holder

For a unique Easter gift idea, take a page from what the Victorians gave as Easter gifts. Let this article from the Victorian children’s publication, Harper’s Young People, be a source of crafting inspiration.

While the article title is a little misleading–I wouldn’t exactly call a flatiron a “toy” and can hardly imagine the look on a child’s face to receive such a thing in their Easter basket (the equivalent of coal in a Christmas stocking, I’d say), they do illustrate how resourceful and crafty young people were encouraged to be over 100 years ago, and most likely these diy Easter gifts were intended to be given to parents and grandparents by children and young adults.

Be creative, many of these ideas can be made into modern Easter presents by adapting them to use what we have available today. Skip the cigar box and simply decoupage postage stamps to an unfinished wooden tray, and you’ll have a thoughtful and unique gift that retains the charm of these old-fashioned craft projects.

Easter Toys

From Harper’s Young People, February 27, 1894

One of the prettiest customs of the year is the giving of Easter gifts. Unlike Christmas, these presents at Easter-time are never supposed to be expensive. They are rather a little reminder of the happy Easter-time, and a sign from the giver to the receiver that the one is thinking of the other.

Of course there are many different kinds of gifts, and perhaps the most conspicuous are those prepared in the shape of eggs. These are not the only gifts that you can appropriately make for this time of the year. The different presents described here are all easily made, with almost no expense, and very acceptable to those you decide to send them to, because they will be the result of your own labor and thought, and that is the best part of giving.

The Flatiron

A handy trifle for the sewing-table, and a most friendly little article to take into the country for the summer outing, is a simple flatiron. Gild the upper part, but leave the face untouched. Wind the handle with a woollen strip covered by a ribbon, or bias strips of fancy silk. In one end of the bow-knot stitch a thimble case, in the other end a place to hold blunt scissors. Choose a heavy iron, and it will be always in use. It will have sewing pinned to the handle for swift running and hemming, or else it will be engaged in pressing sea-moss or flowers, or holding papers together. But very often it will have thimble, scissors, and needles removed, and it will be heated to smooth out ugly wrinkles in cloth, or to dry and pres a sponged spot. It will be absolutely renovate twisted whalebones by dry pressing the bodice or corsets on the wrong side. Use in tailor fashion–that is, bang down the iron firmly, and bear upon it.

Postage Stamp Tray and Pin Holder, and The Egg Basket Bonbon Box

To make a pretty bonbon-box get a small wire egg-boiler and a tall round box with a flat circular lid. This box must fit inside the opening of the egg-boiler, reaching from the bottom to the top, so that the box lid lies level with the top of the wire opening. Before placing the box inside, take a sheet of pale green crimped tissue-paper, cut in in half lengthwise, and tie the strips into the form of a Maltese cross. Fasten the tie to the centre of the bottom of the wire frame inside. Spread out the strips inside, pressing them against the wires lightly with cotton wool; in the centre of the wool put the box. Clip the ends of the tissue paper and paste them narrowly inside the box. Sew a pompom of the tissue-paper on the lid, and finish with a narrow hinge of ribbon. Fill the box with bonbons.

A Stationery Box

The box for stationery is made from a flat cigar box. Take off the lid and front part, fasten them both on in place of the lid, curve off the projecting corners, and sand-paper the box carefully. Set it up on its back, and put in a few lead moulds and sachet powder, covering them with a false bottom of silk-covered pasteboard. Ornament the box with pyrography, or a cluster of postage-stamps varnished, or tie three or four cigar ribbons around the box, fasten their ends with red sealing wax.

The Doll Bonbon Box

When postage stamps are pasted very smoothly, “crazy-quilt” fashion, and varnished, they make a fine enamel-like “all-over” decoration like those on the small try of china from the Young Women’s Christian Association Salesrooms. From the same pretty rooms came the postage-stamp pin-holder. A two-cent postage stamp of the Centennial issue is mounted on a small oblong of cardboard, covered with lavender silk; the front and back are alike. Black pins set off the tints very well.

Will you make another bonbon-box? Take a paper doll’s head and bust, and stitch on a strip of cardboard about five inches high, making the figure about eight inches in all. Cut in half a sheet of crimped tissue paper, gather the crimps together in the middle of each piece, and lay them over each shoulder, hanging even back and front. With a stout thread draw the drapery in like a girdle, just under where the arms belong, stuffing a morsel of cotton under the folds to give roundness. Paste the breadths of the skirt together, paste on the arms, catch the skirt lightly to the fingers, and in a fold or two around the front. The candy box is fastened to the pasteboard strip at the back.

An Iron-Work Inkstand

A new holder for safety-pins is a china doll with two strips of flannel hanging from its waist, stuck with pins; a satin ribbon covers these strips, suggesting an infant’s robe.

For stick-pins and hat-pins a cushion may be ornamented by a china doll fastened to a circular piece of pasteboard. Around the “sitting down” doll is a soft ring of curled hair, and this is placed in the centre of a piece of soft gay-colored silk. The silk is then drawn up lightly and gathered like a Loie Fuller gown around Miss Dolly’s breast.

The iron-work which is now in such favor is really artistic and durable. The big toy-shops and sporting goods shops keep outfits for this fancy work. These patterns are not elaborate. Do not let the curves degenerate into circular curves; keep them “catenary” curves, and you can easily make an inkstand such as is represented in the illustration.

I’ve illustrated this Victorian poem with a vintage illustration of heirloom roses  found in antique seed catalog. The line-art is very detailed and these roses are printable as-is, or use as clip art for your next floral/botanical themed project.

At the end of the poem is a biography of Philip Bourke Marson, you’ll discover that his life was quite tragic, which makes this poem about the secret conversations and thoughts of ephemeral flowers to be all the more poignant.

Vintage illustration of heirloom roses from an antique seed catalog that you can use as clip art.

A Garden Secret
(A Flower and a Hand)

I.

Just after Night-fall.

I heard a whisper of roses,
And light white lilies laugh out:
“Ah, sweet, when the evening closes,
And stars come looking about,
How cool and good it is to stand,
Nor fear at all the gathering hand!”

II.

“Would I were red!” cried a white rose.
“Would I were white!” cried a red one.
“No longer the light wind blows;
He went with the dear dead sun.
Here we forever seem to stay,
And yet a sun dies every day.”

III.

A Lily.

“The sun is not dead, but sleeping,
And each day the same sun wakes;
But when stars their watch are keeping,
Then a time of rest he takes.”

Many Roses together.

“How very wise these lilies are!
They must have heard star talk with star!”

IV.

First Rose.

“Pray, the, can you tell us, lilies,
Where slumbers the wind at night,
When the garden all round so still is,
And brimmed with the moon’s pale light?”

A Lily.

“In branches of great trees he rests.”

Second Rose.

“Not so; they are too full of nests.”

V.

First Rose.

“I think he sleeps where the grass is;
He there would have room to lie;
The white moon over him passes;
He wakes with the dawning sky.”

Many Lilies together.

“How very wise these roses seem,
Who think they know, and only dream!”

VI.

First Rose.

“What haps to a gathered flower!”

Second Rose.

“Nay, sister, now who can tell?
One comes not back just one hour,
To say it is ill or well.
I would with such a one confer,
To know what strange things chanced to her.”

VII.

First Rose.

“Hush! hush! now the wind is waking–
Or is it the wind I hear?
My leaves are thrilling and shaking–
Good-by: I am gathered, my dear!
Now, whether for my bliss or woe,
I shall know what the plucked flowers know!”

By Philip Bourke Marston, Harper’s Monthly, 1892

Note: Here is some biographical information about the author that you may find interesting, if not tragic.

Philip Bourke Marston (13 August 1850 – 13 February 1887) was an English poet.

He was born in London. His father, John Westland Marston (1819-1890), wrote verse dramas, and was a friend of Dickens, Macready and Charles Kean. Philip’s godparents were Philip James Bailey and Dinah Mulock. At his father’s house near Chalk Farm he met authors and actors of his father’s generation, and subsequently the Rossettis, Swinburne, Arthur O’Shaughnessy and Henry Irving. In his fourth year, his sight began to decay, and he gradually became almost totally blind.

His mother died in 1870. His fiance, Mary Nesbit, died in 1871; his closest friend, Oliver Madox Brown, in 1874; his sister Cicely, his amanuensis, in 1878; in 1879 his remaining sister, Eleanor, who was followed to the grave after a brief interval by her husband, the poet O’Shaughnessy, and her two children.

In 1882, the death of his chief poetic ally and inspirer, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was followed closely by that of another kindred spirit, James Thomson (B.V.), who was carried dying from his blind friend’s rooms, where he had sought refuge from his latest miseries early in June of the same year.

It is not surprising that Marston’s verse became sorrowful and melancholy. The idylls of flower-life, such as the early and very beautiful The Rose and the Wind, were succeeded by dreams of sleep and the repose of death. These qualities and gradations of feeling are traceable through his three published collections, Songtide (1871), All in All (1873) and Wind Voices (1883). Marston’s verse was collected in 1892 by Louise Chandler Moulton, a loyal friend, and herself a poet.

In his later years he wrote short stories in Home Chimes and other American magazines, through the agency of Mrs. Chandler Moulton. His popularity in America far exceeded that in his own country.

His health showed signs of collapse from 1883; in January 1887 he lost his voice, and suffered intensely from the failure to make himself understood.

He was commemorated in Gordon Hake’s Blind Boy, and in a sonnet by Swinburne, beginning The days of a man are threescore years and ten. There is an intimate sketch of the blind poet by a friend, Coulson Kernahan, in Sorrow and Song (1894).

An early slacker? Antique tintype photograph of an extremely casual young Victorian man. Scanned and retouched from my original.

“I Once Had A Lover, Hi, Ho!”

By F. H. Stauffer, Peterson’s Magazine, 1860

I once had a lover, hi, ho!
That’s not very strange, I admit;
I was lovely and young, you know,
A Venus just in her transit!

He came with the Summer, hi, ho!
And knelt at my feet to adore;
He called me a “bird,” and a “star,”
And other sweet things by the score.

Before long I took sick, hi ho!
And the small-pox pitted my face,
My cheeks lost their glow, you know,
And my beauty went off in disgrace.

Soon lost I my lover, hi, ho!
That’s not very strange, I admit;
For beauty is fragile, you know,
And so is the sparkle of wit.

He went with the Summer, hi, ho!
But another came in his stead;
‘Tis my soul that he loves, I know,
And soon you will hear we are wed!