Various
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462
When several meet together, polite persons contrive to make those who went last into one room enter first into the next; and as hosts distribute attentions to all in turn—handing the lady of highest rank, or greatest age, into a dinner or supper room—he or she recommends a particular dish first to the second in consideration, proposes to a third to examine a picture, or any pretty thing, before handing it to others; and so on—making, as it were, every one of consequence, and socially promoting liberté, egalité, and fraternité. Those who are poor, and have no servant to attend at their home during absence, should place a slate and slate-pencil at their door, in order that those who visit them may write their names and business.
When you receive company, your apartment should unite French elegance with English comfort. If not rich, and able to keep many servants, appoint one day in the week to see your friends, and keep to that day always. Let your dress, and that of your domestic, and the arrangement of your small domicile, be all in order: however poor and simple, be clean and tidy; have flowers, and whatever small elegances you can collect. 'It is better to receive in the salon, if you have one, than in your bedroom; but that should be preferred before the salle à manger.'—To understand this, we must remember, that in ordinary life—especially in the provinces—the dining-room resembles in general a servants-hall—deal-table, brick floor, or at best boarded, with no carpet; and so forth; the lady's bedroom, on the contrary, except the bed, might pass for a boudoir, everything unseemly being removed during the day.—And when you give a party, you can take coffee in your own private apartment, and receive your morning-visitors there always. When any one enters, rise, go to meet him, and say how glad you are to see him. A lady you take by the hand, and seat her on the sofa, where the lady of the house may place herself likewise; but the monsieur must not presume on such a liberty, but draw his chair to a convenient distance from it for conversation. You offer a young man an easy-chair, but an old gentleman you insist upon occupying it. If the best place in the room be filled by a young woman, and one to whom respect is due enters, the former cedes it to the last arrival, and modestly places herself opposite the fire, which in winter is considered the least honourable situation, as the side is the most so. People of bon ton present their guests with footstools, not chaufferettes, as is the comfortable custom in grades less distinguished. Those who are occupied working or drawing, must lay both aside when but slightly acquainted with their visitor; if, on the contrary, it is one whom you see frequently, you comply with the request which she ought to make, that you will continue it. But should it be a relative, or very intimate friend, you yourself beg permission to go on with your employment, if at least it is one you can pursue and converse easily at the same time; but it should be quite subservient to your visitor's entertainment.
When a new guest arrives, the others rise as well as the master and mistress of the house; it is considered very ill-bred not to do so, or not to treat with politeness every one you meet at a house where you visit—conversing agreeably, and not looking at a stranger with a stony stare, like a stiff Englishman, as if you supposed they were not as fit for society as yourself, a style of insular manners considered insolent in that 'nation whose inhabitants give laws of politeness to the world.' If there are many people present at a morning-call, the earlier comers should retire. During extremely hot weather, or to an author reading his production, you may offer a glass of sirup, or eau sucrée, or if a lady becomes faint, some fleur d'orange and water; but it is provincial to propose anything else; and, indeed, the French never eat between meals, or in any rank above the very lowest will one be seen to partake of anything in the street, fruit or cake, or even give them to their children, it being considered quite mob-manners to do so.
It need hardly be said, in conclusion, that the French exercise considerable tact in the matter of introducing one person to another. They know who should be introduced to each other, and who should not. In our own country, people sometimes think they are performing an act of politeness in introducing one person to another, whereas they are probably giving offence to one of the parties. And with this hint on an important subject, we close our observations on the laws of politeness.
OUR WILD-FRUITS
The next native fruits which demand our notice are the strawberry, raspberry, and the varieties of the bramble tribe, all of which are to be classed under the third section of the natural order Rosaceæ, and form the ninth genus of that order. The general characteristics of these are—the calyx flattish at the bottom, and five-cleft; five petals; many stamens inserted into the calyx with the petals; many fleshy carpels arranged on a somewhat elevated receptacle, with lateral style, near the points of the carpels.
We will begin with the strawberry (Fragaria.) The last fruits of which we spoke—the plum and cherry—though the produce of much larger plants, nay, one of them of a tree which ranks among the timber-trees of our land, are not of superior, if of equal value to those which are about to engage our attention. An old writer quaintly remarks: 'It is certain that there might have been a better berry than the strawberry, but it is equally certain that there is not one;' and I suppose there are few in the present day who will be disposed to dispute this opinion, for there are few fruits, if any, which are in more general repute, or more highly prized, than the strawberry and raspberry; and though the cultivated species have now nearly, if not quite superseded the wild, yet we must not forget that there was a time when none but the latter were to be obtained in England, and that the native sorts of which we are now to speak are the parents of almost all the rich varieties which at present exist in the land. There are doubtless many among the inhabitants of our towns and cities who have never gathered or seen the strawberry in its wild state; and many, very many more who are wholly unacquainted with the peculiar and interesting structure of this fruit and its allies—the raspberry, blackberry, dewberry, and their congeners. The plant which bears the strawberry, whether the wild or garden species, is an herb with three-partite leaves, notched at the edge with a pair of largo membraneous stipules at their base. When growing, this plant throws out two kinds of shoots—one called runners, which lie prostrate on the ground, and end in a tuft of leaves—these root into the soil, and then form new plants—and another growing nearly upright, and bearing at the end a tuft of flowers which produce the fruit. The calyx, which is flat, green, and hairy, is divided into ten parts, called sepals, and there are five petals; the stamens, which are very numerous, and grow out of the calyx, are placed in a crowded ring round the pistil. This pistil consists of a number of carpels, arranged in many rows very regularly on a central receptacle; each carpel has a style, ending in a slightly-lobed stigma; and an ovary, wherein lies one single ovule, or young seed. The course of the transformation of this apparatus into fruit is highly curious and interesting. First, the petals fall off, and the calyx closes over the young fruit; immediately the receptacle on which the carpels grow begins to swell, and soon after the carpels themselves increase in size, and become shining, whilst their styles begin to shrivel. The receptacle increases in size so much more and faster than the carpels, which soon cease to enlarge at all, that they speedily begin to be separated by it, and the surface of the receptacle to become apparent. In a little time, the carpels are completely scattered in an irregular manner over the surface of the receptacle, which has become soft and juicy, and has all along been pushing aside the calyx, which finally falls back almost out of sight. The receptacle finally assumes a crimson colour, grows faster and faster, and becomes sweet and fragrant. Those which we commonly call the seeds of the strawberry, then lie on the surface, and these, if carefully examined, will prove to be the carpels containing the seeds in a little thin shell like a small nut. The strawberry is, therefore, not, properly speaking, a fruit; it is a fleshy receptacle, bearing the fruit on it, which fruit is, in fact, the ripe carpels. Now this structure is, as I have said, common to all strawberries, each variety having, however, its own peculiarities of growth and appearance.
There are but nine distinct species of the tribe Fragaria: one native in Germany, where it is called Erdbeere; two in North, and one in South America; one in Surinam; and one in India; the remaining three being indigenous in Britain, where, besides these three wild species, there are at least sixty mongrel varieties, the results of cultivation; some of which, recently produced from seed, are of great excellence. The finest of these native British species is the wood-strawberry (Fragaria vesca), which is common everywhere; the second, the hautboy (F. elatior), is much less frequently found, and is by Hooker supposed to be scarcely indigenous; and the third, the one-leaved strawberry (F. monophylla), is unknown to me, and only named by some writers as a species. The common wood-strawberry bears leaves smaller, more sharply notched, and more wrinkled in appearance, than any of the cultivated species. The earliest formed are closely covered, as is the stem, with white silvery hairs, and the leaves turn red early in the autumn, or in dry weather. The blossoms appear very early in the spring, throwing up their delicate white petals on every bank and hedgerow, among the clusters of violets and primroses, and even not unfrequently before these sweet harbingers of spring venture to unfold and give promise of abundant fruit. But though the blossoms are so common, from some reason or other the fruit seldom ripens freely, unless along some of the more remote and secluded woodpaths, where the bright red berries lurk on every sunny bank, between the trunks of the old beech and oak trees, and are overhung by the beautiful bunches of polypody and foxglove, and other free-growing wild-plants which spring in such solitudes, providing the flocks of varied song-birds which frequent such delightful glades with many a juicy meal.
Few things can be more agreeable than a day of strawberry-picking in the woods and glens where they abound, when troops of happy little children are scattered about, singly, or in groups of three or four, each with a basket to receive the delicious spoil, and all grubbing among the moss and herbage, and shouting with exultation as one cluster after another reveals itself to their eager researches. Some are too much engaged in the quest to notice the brilliant flowers which at another time would have engrossed all their thoughts; whilst others, wreathed round with the bright blue wood-vetch, the shining broad-leaved bryony, and the rose and honeysuckle, will have to lay down the large handfuls of flowers with which they have encumbered themselves, before they can share in the enjoyment of collecting the fragrant berries. Then comes the hour of assembling, to take their tea and eat the sweet, fresh fruit, and talk over their adventures with the happy parents who have awaited the gathering together of the young ones. Perhaps this assembling takes place in the nearest farmhouse, where fresh milk and rich cream are added to the repast; or it may be under the boughs of one of those masters of the forest, which we may fancy to have seen such gatherings, year by year, for centuries past, and could tell us tales of groups of little people, arranged in the costumes depicted by Holbein, Vandyk, or Lely, the garb of ancient days, seated by their stately seniors, whilst the antlered deer, then the free denizens of the forest, stood at bay, half-startled at the merry party which had invaded their solitude; and the squirrel, little more vivacious in its furry jacket than the stiffly-dressed little bipeds, sprang from bough to bough overhead; and the hare and rabbit bounded along over the distant upland. But we must return to our description of
The blushing strawberry,
Which lurks close shrouded from high-looking eyes,
Shewing that sweetness low and hidden lies.
The whole tribe takes its generic name from its fragrance; the word fragrans, sweet-smelling, being that from which Fragaria is derived. The wood-strawberry is seldom larger than a horse-bean, of a brilliant red, and the flesh whiter than that of any cultivated species; the flavour is remarkably clear and full—a pleasant subacid, with more of the peculiar strawberry perfume in the taste than any other. They are very wholesome, indeed considered valuable medicinally. The other wild species is the hautboy: this is larger than F. vesca, more hairy, and its fruit a deeper red; the flavour, like that of the garden-hautboy, rather musty; in its uses and qualities, it resembles F. vesca. The strawberry does not seem to have been noticed by the ancients, though it is slightly named by Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny. It appears to have been cultivated in England early, as an old writer, Tusser, says:
'Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot,
With strawberry-roots the best to be got;
Such growing abroad among thorns in the wood,
Well chosen and pricked, prove excellent good.'
Gerarde speaks of them as growing 'in hills and valleys, likewise in woods, and other such places as be something shadowie; they prosper well in gardens, the red everywhere; the other two, white and green, more rare, and are not to be founde save only in gardens.' Shakspeare speaks of this fruit. We find the Bishop of Ely, when conversing with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the change of conduct manifested by the young King Henry V., on his coming to the throne, says:
'The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighboured by fruits of baser quality,
And so the prince,' &c.
And the Duke of Gloster, when counselling in the Tower with his allies, and plotting to strip his young nephew of his crown and honours, says:
'My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there:
I do beseech you send for some of them.'
Parkinson speaks, in 1629, of their having been introduced 'but of late days.' As an article of diet, this fruit offers but little nourishment, but it is considered useful in some diseases, and generally wholesome, though there are some constitutions to which it is injurious. Linnæus states, that he was twice cured of the gout by the free use of strawberries; and Gerarde and other old authors enlarge much on their efficacy in consumptive cases. Phillips tells us, that 'in the monastery of Batalha is the tomb of Don John, son of King John I. of Portugal, which is ornamented by the representation of strawberries, this prince having chosen them for his crest, to shew his devotion to St John the Baptist, who lived on fruits.' This is rather a curious notion, for though the Scripture tells us of St John the Baptist, that when in the wilderness 'his meat was locusts and wild honey,' we have no reason to suppose that he lived always even on these. What these locusts were is problematical, but it is likely they were the fruit of the locust-tree, Hymenæa, which bears a pod containing a sort of bean, enclosed in a whitish substance of fine filaments, as sweet as sugar or honey. The wild bees frequent these trees, and it is probable that here St John found his twofold aliment; but we have no particular reason to suppose that he wholly lived on fruit, and certainly could have little to do with strawberries, as there is no species indigenous in the Holy Land.
But we must now proceed to examine and record the structure of the raspberry, raspis, or hindberry, by all which names it is called. This is a species of the Rubus, of which Hooker records only ten species as native in Britain, though Loudon extends the number to thirteen; of which one, the dwarf crimson (Rubus araticus), is to be found only in Scotland. We cannot, of course, notice each of these species separately, nor will it be necessary to do so, as the varieties which mark the different kinds of common bramble are such as would not be observed except by an accurate botanist. This tribe, which takes its name from the Celtic rub, which signifies red, and is supposed to be so named from the red tint of its young shoots, as well as from the colour of the juice of its berry, consists chiefly of shrub-like plants, with perennial roots, most of which produce suckers or stolons from the roots, which ripen and drop their leaves one year, and resume their foliage, produce blossom shoots, flowers, and fruit, and die the next year, of which the raspberry and common bramble are examples. In some of the species the stem is upright, or only a little arched at the top, but in the greater number it is prostrate and arched, the ends of the shoots rooting when they reach the ground, and forming new plants, sometimes at the distance of several yards from the parent root. The branches and stems are all more or less prickly; those of the common bramble being armed with strong and sharp spines, and even the leaf-stems lined with very sharp reflected prickles, which hitch in everything they come near, and inflict sharp wounds. The corolla is formed of an inferior calyx of one leaf, divided into five segments, of five petals in some species; and in others pink, but always of very light and fragile texture, and more or less crumpled, on which the caterpillar of the beautiful white admiral butterfly (Limenitis camilla) sometimes feeds. It has many stamens, arranged like those of the strawberry; and the pistil is composed, as that is, of a number of carpels rising out of a central receptacle.
But now let us examine the structure of the fruit, which we shall find differs materially from that of the strawberry in its formation. We will take that of the raspberry as our example; for though the berries of the whole tribe are on the same construction, we cannot have one better known or which would better illustrate the subject. If you pull off the little thimble-shaped fruit from its stem, you will find beneath a dry, white cone; this is the receptacle, and the very part which you eat in the strawberry. If you look attentively at a ripe raspberry, you will find that it is composed of many separate little balls of fleshy and juicy substance, each entirely covered by a thin, membraneous skin, which separates it wholly from its neighbour, and from the cone. Each of these contains a single seed, and from each a little dry thread, which is the withered style, projects. You will find none of the dry grains which lie on the surface of the strawberry, the part which corresponds with the inner part of those, lying in the juicy pulp below, whilst that which once corresponded with their outer part or shell, has itself been transformed into that juicy pulp which covers them: the fact is, that the carpels of the raspberry, instead of remaining dry like the strawberry, swell as they ripen, and acquire a soft, pulpy coat, which in time becomes red, juicy, and sweet. These carpels are so crowded together, that they at last grow into one mass, and form the little thimble-shaped fruit which we eat, the juices of the receptacle being all absorbed by the carpels, which eventually separate from it, and leave the dry cone below. Lindley says: 'In the one case, the receptacle robs the carpels of all their juice, in order to become gorged and bloated at their expense; in the other case, the carpels act in the same selfish manner on the receptacle.'
If you observe the berries of the common brambles, the dewberry, and the cloudberry, you will find them to be all thus formed, though the number of grains, as these swollen carpels are called, differ materially—the dewberry often maturing only one or two, while the raspberry, and some kinds of the brambleberry, present us with twenty and more.
The raspberry was but little noticed by the ancients. Pliny speaks of a sort of bramble called by the Greeks Idæus, from Mount Ida, but he seems to value it but little. He says, however: 'The flowers of this raspis being tempered with honey, are good to be laid to watery or bloodshotten eyes, as also in erysipelas; being taken inwardly, and drunk with water, it is a comfortable medicine to a weak stomach.' Gerarde speaks of it under the name of hindeberry, as inferior to the blackberry. The wild raspberry, which is the stock whence we get the garden red raspberry, grows freely in many parts of England. It is found in Wilts, Somerset, Devonshire, and other counties, but is most abundant in the north. Except in size, it is little inferior to the cultivated kinds, and possesses the same colour, scent, and flavour. This fruit, and the strawberry, are especially suitable for invalids, as they do not engender acetous fermentation in the stomach. In dietetic and medicinal qualities, these fruits are also much alike. The bramble, which grows everywhere, creeping on every hedge, and spreading on the earth in all directions, abounds in useful properties, most parts of the plant being good for use. The berries make very tolerable pies, and are much in request for such purposes, and for making jam in farmhouses and cottages, where they are often mixed with apples to correct thereby the rather faint and vapid flavour that they possess when used by themselves. This jam, as well as the raw fruit, is considered good for sore throats, and for inflammation of the gums and tonsils. We are also told, that the young green shoots, eaten as salad, will fix teeth which are loose; probably (if it be so) it is from the astringent qualities in the juice strengthening and hardening the gums. The leaves pounded, are said to be a cure for the ringworm; and they are also made into tea by some of the cottagers, which is very useful in some ailments; and the roots boiled in honey, are said to be serviceable in dropsy. The green twigs are used to dye silk and woollen black; and silk-worms will feed on them, though the silk produced by those so fed is not equal to that of those fed on the mulberry. The long trailing shoots are important to thatchers for binding thatch, and are also used for binding straw-mats, beehives, &c.; and even the flowers were anciently supposed to be remedies against the most dangerous serpents. Loudon says: 'The berries, when eaten at the moment they are ripe, are cooling and grateful; a little before, they are coarse and astringent; and a little after, disagreeably flavoured or putrid.' He adds: 'Care is requisite in gathering the fruit, for one berry of the last sort will spoil a whole pie.' Great quantities of them are collected by the women and children in the country, and sold in the neighbouring towns by the quart. There is a double-flowered species of bramble, and one which bears white berries. The fruit of the dwarf crimson (R. araticus), and that of the cloudberry (R. chamæmorus), are highly prized in Scotland and Sweden, and in the latter country are much used in sauces and soups, and for making vinegar; and Dr Clarke says, that he was cured of a bilious fever by eating great quantities. The cloudberry, which grows on the tops of the highest mountains, is the badge of the clan Macfarlane. The bramble seems to be of almost universal extent, at least it is found at the utmost limits of phænogamous vegetation; and we are led to remark the goodness of God in thus providing a plant which combines so many valuable qualities, and so many useful parts, capable of extending itself so freely in defiance of all impediments, and of standing so many vicissitudes of climate, without the aid of culture or care. The bramble is emphatically the property of the poor; its fruit may be gathered without restriction; its shoots, both in their young medicinal state, and in their harder and tougher growth, are theirs to use as they will; and their children may enjoy the sport of blackberry-picking, and the profits of blackberry-selling, none saying them nay; and many a pleasant and wholesome pudding or pie is to be found on tables in blackberry season, where such dainties are not often seen at any other time, unless, indeed, we except the whortleberry season. The poet Cowper sings of—