Project Gutenberg is one of life’s loveliest pleasure, bringing us vintage lovers a daily glimpse into a world vanishing before our very eyes. Each day I peek at whats new and almost always find a little something to gladden my silly heart. This morning it was the bestest kind of delight: a book illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith – The Seven Ages of Childhood with verses from Carolyn Wells. So here for your pleasure and mine are the seven ages illustrated and described…
First the Infant in Its Mother’s Arms
Then the Toddling Baby Boy With shining morning face, Creeping like a snail.
Then the Epicure, With fine and greedy taste for porridge
Then the Lover, sighing like a furnace.
Then the Scholar, With eyes severe and hair of formal cut
The Sixth Shifts, To lean and slender maidenhood, With thoughtful eyes and quiet mien.
Last scene of all that ends This strange eventful history— Is First Love and mere enchantment— Sans Mother, Sans Father, Sans Brother, Sans Everything
P.S: Did any other Mummy find this ever so slightly painful? I am starting to think I need to find a way to keep my Finn, giggling at ten years old forever. Sans Mother?? Not if I have my way Finnster!
Today Housekeepers I have a scrumptious little puttery treat for you, just right for long, languid sunny days spent lying in the grass, or indeed keeping children busy during the holidays… Once upon a time, we were little girls and little girls like nothing better than a sunny day spent holding a buttercup under the…
Lordy Ladies, you don’t wanna cross me today. I’m in a right little strop. My lovely friend Emma is getting married in a month’s time, and being the oh so elegant, oh so refined woman that she is, she is not insisting on donning a tiara and tra-lalling around town with a string of drunken…
Femorabilia. Femorabilia?? Working for the Man Because the Disgruntled Housewife always makes me laugh. La Maison Bleue Pretty french store… Cashmere Wash… Buttermilk Recipe… For caring for old linen… Nancy’s Vintage Soak. Whitener for Antique and Vintage Baby Clothes, Cleans Quilts, Vintage Linens, and Smocking Items… Godey’s Lady’s on the Linen Closet and Care of…
What we want is never simple. We move among the things we thought we wanted and these things bear our names- now they want us. But what we want appears in dreams, wearing disguises. We fall past, holding out our arms and in the morning our arms ache. We don’t remember the dream but the…
I am between two houses. Caught between two worlds. For as we remove all traces of personality from Chez Brocante, in order to appease buyers who struggle to visualise living anywhere other than inside a magnolia box, we find ourselves retreating more and more to Dad’s bungalow, revelling in the space, and marvelling at how easy…
Her mind lives in a quiet room, A narrow room, and tall, With pretty lamps to quench the gloom And mottoes on the wall. There all the things are waxen neat, And set in decorous lines, And there are posies, round and sweet, And little, straightened vines. Her mind lives tidily, apart From cold and…
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Note of Interest:The verses are cleverly adapted from “All the world’s a stage” passage in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurses arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school”
Shakespeare, truly a man for the ages. His jokes are still funny and his observations of life are still poignant. Motherhood is bittersweet, with the desire to see your child grow into the full flower of maturity struggling against the desire to hold them forever small and sweet and safe in your arms. *sigh*
Note of Interest: The verses are cleverly adapted from “All the world’s a stage” passage in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurses arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school”
Shakespeare, truly a man for the ages. His jokes are still funny and his observations of life are still poignant. Motherhood is bittersweet, with the desire to see your child grow into the full flower of maturity struggling against the desire to hold them forever small and sweet and safe in your arms. *sigh*
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Note of Interest:The verses are cleverly adapted from “All the world’s a stage” passage in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurses arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school”
Shakespeare, truly a man for the ages. His jokes are still funny and his observations of life are still poignant.
Motherhood is bittersweet, with the desire to see your child grow into the full flower of maturity struggling against the desire to hold them forever small and sweet and safe in your arms. *sigh*
Note of Interest:
The verses are cleverly adapted from “All the world’s a stage” passage in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurses arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school”
Shakespeare, truly a man for the ages. His jokes are still funny and his observations of life are still poignant.
Motherhood is bittersweet, with the desire to see your child grow into the full flower of maturity struggling against the desire to hold them forever small and sweet and safe in your arms. *sigh*