Anonymous

We who live in the present generation of this best of all possible worlds, as we may well deem it, considering that we have no experience of any other, are apt to look back on those who preceded us as benighted beings who walked by very dim lights, had few artistic perceptions, and only the most humdrum of occupations. Girls who were born before Waterloo were not very much educated, and not at all emancipated, and when we think of them we are apt to wonder how their lives dragged on without railways, without gas, without circulating libraries, magazines, or tennis.

wax

WAX FLOWERS (1853).

On the whole, however, these old-fashioned lasses had no time to be dull. One whose brain was as bright as ever when Queen Victoria celebrated her first Jubilee in 1887 was questioned by a girl of the period as to her occupations when in her teens and afterwards. "My dear," she said, "there were always babies in our old house at home, and your father was the youngest of them. I had the baby clothes to make, and they wore out so fast! When I was tired of plain hemming and sewing, I used to embroider the cap crowns or quill up the clean cap borders." And this woman's mind was not in the least dwarfed or stunted by much needlework; she lived and travelled a good deal on the Continent afterwards, and kept well abreast of the literature of her day to the very end.

Fine needlework may certainly be counted among the vanished arts, for our muslin embroidery is now Swiss, and made by machine, and our delicate stitchery accomplished by a "Singer" or a "Willcox and Gibbs'." No longer, like the Martineaus of Norwich and their contemporaries, do we make the fine linen shirts of our fathers and brothers; and no longer, happily, are middle-class girls obliged to laboriously copy the new music and songs that their wealthier relatives and friends have purchased. That is a distinct change for the better.

A kind of work that late in the last and early in this century was thought very highly of, and occupied a good deal of time, was called filigree. A Christmas present for Grandmamma or for Mamma's birthday might be a tea-caddy or a workbox, the frame of which was produced by the cabinetmaker in rosewood or mahogany and lined with tinfoil, or lead, or satin paper, as the case might be. Rims of polished wood were seen at the corners, and received the lock and hinges, but the surface was sunk and had to be filled in with tiny rolls of gilt-edged paper made in long lengths for the purpose. These rolls were closely packed together, and produced an appearance of fine gilt tracery, as seen in the illustration below. Unless very roughly treated, or kept in a palpably damp place, they did not come out of position. In the absence of all Oriental goods, which were never seen in those days unless in families connected with the East India Company, they were considered handsome, and no one not in the secret could have guessed how the effect was obtained.

filigree

FILIGREE WORK (1795).

Here and there in great houses a few fine lacquered or Chinese cabinets might be seen, principally brought home as loot, for they were most plentiful in military and naval families. They were much admired and very highly esteemed, and some ingenious individual hit on a mode of making very passable imitations of them in a small way; and it was not entirely a feminine industry, but one in which the sterner sex could find indoor occupation during wet weather and long evenings without loss of dignity. Small tables and the doors of corner cupboards were frequently treated in this manner, especially the latter, which were seldom looked at very closely and did not get much handled. The work was called imitation lacquer, and the materials were collected during summer and autumn.

Very thin leaves were selected, such as the crimson foliage of the Herb Robert when it grows in stony places, silver-weed, which is to be found in hilly districts such as Derbyshire and the Lake Country, and the leaves of the sloe or blackthorn, which in late autumn turn yellowish and assume curious fade green tints. They were most carefully and smoothly dried between sheets of blotting-paper under heavy weights or in the thick volumes of bound-up music then to be found in every house, and when quite dry they were so thin that the ordinary finger might be passed over them without feeling an inequality of surface. The piece of wood—table top, cupboard door, or what not—intended to be ornamented was made perfectly smooth, and the delicate leaves were fixed on it as taste dictated with clean, strong gum. If any stalks were required to connect leaves, they were painted in; and when this was done, well pressed, and quite dry, all the interstices were filled up by means of a small camel's-hair brush with a black or dark brown varnish, probably shellac. Another coat very often had to be put on, and when all was perfectly smooth and flat two or three coats were laid all over by way of finish, and when perfectly dry and hard the article looked remarkably well.

A SAMPLE OF BERLIN WOOL WORK.

Berlin wool work on canvas, either in raised cross or tent stitch, was a great resource to ladies, and largely used for furnishing purposes. Of course, it was the latter-day equivalent of the old tapestry, and tent stitch was usually worked in frames, while really good workers could accomplish cross stitch in their hands without drawing up or cockling. Figure-pieces were often framed and hung as pictures, and fearful and wonderful they generally were. Many of the floral wreaths, however, were really artistic, especially those that depicted carnations, tulips, and poppies. Some designs were absurdly impossible, and a writer in the 'forties describes them as peacocks or birds of Paradise resting on their talons on the petals of passion-flowers. Shading was a matter of taste—good, bad, and indifferent.

The bride of that day generally took many monuments of her own and her family's industry to her new home in the shape of wool-worked cushions, chair seats, screens, and sometimes borders to table covers and curtains. Preparing them was a great pleasure, and she was very proud of them when done. They were quite in the taste of the day, and none of us in such matters lives twenty years before our time.

Another kind of decorative furnishing very highly prized was the leather work which made such handsome frames for mirrors and was also much used for brackets, and those dark articles formed a very welcome relief to the amount of gilding in vogue during the days of the Third Empire in France, which was copied almost ad nauseam in England. They entailed an amount of attention from duster and feather brush that would drive modern mistresses and maids crazy; but that is a detail.

The modelling and cutting of leaves, flowers, and berries in leather was really hard work, and required hands endowed with a good deal of muscular strength. The skilled worker was always a student of nature, and found models in some of her loveliest forms. Vine leaves and tendrils, with or without bunches of grapes, oak leaves and acorns, convolvulus blossoms and leaves (see illustration at head of article), passion-flowers and roses, were great favourites. The leather used was tanned sheepskin and cowhide, technically known as basil and skiver; the tools were few, being principally a sharp strong pair of scissors, a stout penknife, a stiletto and a veiner. The best work was often accomplished with the fewest tools, for it is very rarely that the craftsman or artist who can afford to buy every possible accessory turns out anything worth looking at. A large board or old deal table, a basin of water, sponge, wire, tacks, hammer, stain, glue, and varnish, were all needed, and the work was not quite of a kind for the family circle, as it was best pursued in a room with no carpet to spoil, and where no one could be disturbed by the tap-tapping of the hammer. Very good work may be seen from time to time at the various "Arts and Crafts" exhibitions, and leather embossing is a good deal used. Professor Herkomer has some wonderful embossed leather on the dining-room chairs in his House Beautiful at Bushey, and it was all done by a lady. Work in leather cannot therefore be classed altogether among the lost arts; it is being modified, and may some day be revived in all its glory by women who have plenty of leisure and love to have something to show for their handiwork. It must not be forgotten that even in an age that has witnessed such a revival of learning as this there are still girls of active temperament who are neither students nor great readers.

Shell work was accomplished by sticking small shells, chiefly the halves of little pink or white bivalves on to a coloured background with very strong glue. A shallow box was the favourite article, and it was then glazed and used as an ornament much as cases of stuffed birds are. How long it lasted is proved by the specimen photographed, which was worked in 1805.

The wealth of flowers in the present day is quite a modern feature of luxury. Even twenty years ago, except in summer, they were the prerogatives of the wealthy who had gardeners and greenhouses and plenty of artificial heat. Lovers of flowers consequently had wax models of them, and very beautiful they were when natural, though unfortunately they had to be covered with glass shades. The lady who could make them really well was very much thought of, and it was an occupation that could be pursued at any time, except in severely cold weather and a hard frost. The Pantheon in Oxford Street was the great place for obtaining the sheets of wax, shaved off a block with a sharp plane, which was a delicate operation seldom attempted by an amateur. The rose wax was peculiarly thin, almost of the consistence of a real rose petal. The chief tools were small, sharp scissors and a few bone or steel pins with solid glass heads, some dry colours and cotton wool to rub them on with. The worker simply took a rose, snowdrop, violet, or whatever flower she preferred, pulled it carefully to pieces, laid each portion on her sheet of wax and cut out by it as closely as possible, previously wetting her scissors. The petals were moulded in the hollow of the hand with the head of a pin after being coloured, and curled over where desirable, with the steel part wetted like the scissors. The wire stalk was covered by a narrow strip of green wax neatly rolled and rubbed smooth, crooked over at the top and a sort of little wax centre formed on this crook on which the flower was literally built petal by petal. Experience taught which flowers were feasible and which were not. Roses usually turned out well, so did scarlet japonica, apple blossom, snowdrops, and daffodils. Primroses were almost unattainable. Lilies of the valley had each separate blossom made in a tiny mould. All scraps of wax were collected in a stone jar (a strong jam-pot), and, as the great crux was to obtain natural-looking leaves, this wax was carefully melted over or near the fire, well mixed and coloured with indigo and ochre in proportion to the tint of green required. Suppose a few violet leaves were wanted, fresh ones of two or three sizes were gathered and the upper side thoroughly, but not lavishly, moistened with sweet or salad oil. Then a brush was dipped in the liquid green wax and passed over the surface, which was allowed to cool and then a wire stalk was laid on to form the mid-rib of the leaf. Two or three more layers of wax were added, and when quite cold the natural leaf was removed, and a very exact facsimile made its appearance. A well-arranged vase (see illustration on page 309) or basket of wax flowers, closely copied from nature was very pretty and acceptable in the absence of the real blossoms. The wax was rather expensive, though the tools were not, the average price being from one shilling to one shilling and sixpence per dozen small sheets.

Sampler-making was a fine art practised in silk or wool on fine woollen or silk canvas. Its primary use was to teach how to make capital and small letters and figures, which were practically applied to the marking of linen; but occasionally the geography of England was attempted, as shown in the illustration below, and probably no girl who had marked in the outlines and names of the counties ever forgot their respective positions.

All these home occupations had their day and fulfilled their purpose. They added to the household attractions, and made the rooms look as if women lived there and took a pride in them. Very often the nimble fingers worked all the more quickly and efficiently while an interesting book was being read aloud.

We often say that in those days—which, after all, are not so very long ago—girls were delicate and unhealthy, took but little exercise, and were too much given to sedentary occupations. But it was only the foolish (who carry everything to excess) of whom this was true. There was a good deal of running about the house, and the sons and daughters would have known very little of their relations and friends a few miles off, if they had not walked to see them, perhaps to spend the day, or to go one day and return the next. Few families were without sundry poor people in whom they were interested, and if they lived at the other end of the parish, it was an object for a walk to take an old woman a milk pudding, or a little delicacy to a sick child. Houses were more roomy than they are now, certainly the population was not quite so thick on the ground, and in persistent bad weather, when outdoor exercise was impossible for the girls, there were fine games of battledore and shuttlecock in the hall or schoolroom or some half-empty apartment cleared for the purpose. And it was a point of skill, as well as honour, to see who could keep up longest with a skipping-rope, and, though the little ones shared the fun, it was by no means confined to them.

Small daily duties well done, and the change of work that is as good as play, made life satisfactory as well as pleasant. Amusements were rare and costly; they are not invariably cheap now, but apparently we must have them, whatever may be neglected in consequence. We cannot exactly go back to all the ways of our "foremothers," but we need not despise them, and already there are signs that the finger of common-sense is pointing back to that lost era of domesticity in which so many English virtues grew up and nourished.

E. C.