Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Sacountala (1858) ballet-pantomime en deux actes / tiré du drame indien de Calidasâ by Gautier Th Ophile
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 38 lines and 2472 words, and 1 pages
xiii
HOW MY LADY KILCRONEY ENTERED INTO ROYAL SERVICE UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ITALIAN HAT TRIMMED BY MISS PAMELA POUNCE 17
IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE IS ORDERED TO PACK 47
IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE, THE MILLINER'S ASSISTANT, BECOMES ARBITER OF LIFE AND DEATH IN HIGH SOCIETY 58
SHOWING STORM WITHIN AND WITHOUT 79
IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE DEMONSTRATES THE VALUE OF VIRTUE TO HER FAMILY AND HER FRIENDS 106
IN WHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY STRIKES A MATCH AND MISS POUNCE THROWS COLD WATER ON IT 131
IN WHICH IS MANIFEST THE HAND OF THE SAINTED JULIA 152
IN WHICH A WONDERFUL BIT OF LUCK COMES OUT OF MISS POUNCE'S BANDBOX FOR SOMEBODY ELSE 162
IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE HAS DONE WITH LOVE 187
IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE SETS THREE BLACK FEATHERS FOR TRAGEDY 202
IN WHICH THERE IS A PRODIGIOUS SCANDAL ABOUT PINK FLOUNCES 227
IN WHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY INSISTS ON THE DUTY OF MORALITY 238
IN WHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY MAKES AN INDELICATE FUSS 254
IN WHICH KITTY IS MORE INCOMPARABLE THAN EVER 274
IN WHICH THE MAD BRAT TAKES THE BIT BETWEEN HER TEETH, BUT MISS PAMELA POUNCE KEEPS HOLD OF THE REINS 285
IN WHICH MY LADY KILCRONEY HAS THE LAST WORD 313
PREFACE There can be no doubt that shedding her petticoats a woman has shed much, if not all, of her femininity, till she is now merely a person of an opposite sex. She is a female; for nothing will ever make her a man, but Woman , Woman with her charm, her elusiveness, her mystery, her reserves, her virginal withdrawals, her exquisite yieldings; she is that no longer.
How much of her queenship has she not given up with her petticoats?
At no time was Woman more thoroughly feminine, more absolutely mistress of her own fascinations and of the hearts of men, than in the eighteenth century; preferably the latter half.
That was a time when it may be said that no woman could look ugly; that beauty became irresistible. Take the period consecrated by the art of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and of Romney; take the picture of the Parson's Daughter, by the latter artist; that little face, so piquante, innocent, fresh, sly, mischievous, is nothing at all without its cloud of powdered curls but a very ordinary visage; almost common indeed! With its distinctive coiffure, framing, softening, etherealising, giving depth to the eyes and allurement to the smile; how irresistibly delicious! How irresistibly delicious, too, is the mode which exposes the young throat so modestly between the soft folds of the muslin kerchief.
Youth then, even without much beauty, is served to perfection by the taste of the period. What of beauty itself? Look at the portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous one with the big hat, where she is holding the dancing baby. There is an answer more eloquent than any words can give.
And, rarest thing in a fashion! it became age as completely. Even elderliness emerged triumphant. I vow that Mrs. Hardcastle, Mrs. Malaprop, Mrs. Primrose are delightful figures of buxomness on any stage. Their double chins assume a pleasant sort of dignity, overshadowed by the curls and loops of their tremendous coiffures. The dress with its panniers, its apron, its general amplitude is peculiarly advantageous to the too, too solid flesh of the matron.
The mode of the moment has a singular effect on the morals of the moment. Our emotions are more moulded and coloured by our clothes than we are aware.
It is quite certain that when a young lady went panniered and patched, fichued and ruffled, powdered and rouged, tripping on high heels, ready for the minuet, her feelings went delicately with her, metaphorically garbed in daintiness to match.
And, when a gentleman of fashion was a Beau; when his fine leg showed to its utmost in a silk stocking; when his pampered hand was as elegant of gesture with a pinch of snuff between falling ruffles as it was in whipping out a small sword, he retained his masculine virility none the less; but like the blade of that same small sword, was cutting, polished, deadly, vicious even, all within the measure of courtesy and refinement.
The world has mightily changed since the days when hearts beat under the folds of the fichu or against the exquisite embroideries of the waistcoat. Sad divagations then, as now, were taken out of the path of rectitude, but they were taken with a rustle of protesting petticoats, to the gallant accompaniment of buckled shoes or, more romantic still, dashing top-boots.
A tale of 1788 is necessarily a tale of petticoats.
"A winning wave, deserving note Of a tempestuous petticoat,"
cries the poet of an earlier age. Femininity must needs rustle and whisper, and curtsy and flounce through every chapter.
The collaborator whose name appears for the last time on this title page, turned to the century of The Bath Comedy and the subsequent and connected chronicles as a kind of relaxation of the mind from what he most hated: the ugliness of modern life. The realism which sets itself to describe the material, the grosser aspect of any emotion, the brutality that miscalls itself strength, that forcing of the note of horror--which is no more power than the beating of a tin can or the shrieking of a syren is music--were abhorrent to him. He liked the pretty period in spite of its artificialities; he liked the whole glamour of the time; he liked its reticence and its gaiety, its politeness, its wit, and its naughtiness and its quaintness, because, as in an artistic bout of fencing, it was all bounded by a certain measure of grace and rule.
The laughter he gave to these conceptions came, as true laughter must, from a most innocent and wholesome heart. It is this laughter which is his last legacy to a sad, tangled, and rather ugly world.
AGNES EGERTON CASTLE.
The romance of a lady's own woman is centred in her mistress. She will clothe her in finery with a greater joy than if she were draping herself; rather than see her go shabby she would wear sackcloth; she will hang over the banisters, on a dinner-party night, to observe the sit of her train as she sweeps downstairs on the arm of some notable personage; she will lean out of the window to watch her step into her sedan, and if there are Beaux hovering and my Lady tosses her plumes and whisks her panniers to proper advantage it is Abigail's heart that beats high with pride.
Even Miss Lydia Pounce, own woman to my Lady Kilcroney, a damsel remarkable from her earliest youth for her tart and contradictious ways, who was verging on elderliness now with the acidity and leanness peculiar to the "born old maid," would have laid down her life to ensure that my Lady's court gown should fit her trim waist without a wrinkle, or that the pink silk stocking that clothed her pretty leg was drawn to its proper skin-tight limit.
If Woman be a heroine to her lady's maid, in what light does she appear to her Milliner?
Here we come upon debatable ground. At first sight it would seem that the milliner, being dependent upon her customers for her very existence, it must follow that whatever her private opinion may be with regard to their appearance and taste, she can have but one burning desire: to please her patronesses. There is nevertheless another side to the question.
What Woman of intelligence but does not realise that a Mode may make or mar her? How much may hang on the droop of a feather; the tilt of a hat-brim; the glow of a rose in cunning juxtaposition with the soft carmine of a blushing cheek? Blue eyes may flash into sudden significance under a knot of azure ribbon, that had before languished their tenderest in vain. Saucy innocence may triumph beneath a shepherdess wreath; or tired charms kindle into new brilliancy stimulated by the consciousness of the perfect inspiration. In fine, all that life holds best is at the mercy of the mantua maker where the Lady of Fashion is concerned. Let but a clever business woman grasp this great and awful truth; and she who combines the brain that can devise, the taste that never fails, the acumen that knows no hesitation, the finger that is at once light and firm, unerring and ethereal, becomes to her employers a treasure beyond the mines of Golconda!
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page