V.I.L.E.

Search: all the lovely cheeses. Destroy: that cockfarminf fountain in the middle. so twee.

But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,

Then went out into the night beneath the stars.



He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,

And a gash across his temple dripping red;

He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,

And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.



He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;

She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;

He bade her search the pocket saying "That's from Mad Carew,"

And she found the little green eye of the god.



She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,

Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;

But she wouldn't take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone

With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.



When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,

She thought of him and hurried to his room;

As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air

Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.



His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;

The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;

An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,

'Twas the "Vengeance of the Little Yellow God."

Check out the latest Difference Engines! Prints out mathematical, astronomical and actuarial tables with unprecedented accuracy!!

Yours aye,
Henry Bufton-Tufton

Being at this inst. your obdt servant,
Tierceney Swiggens

This question has been debated at quite wearisome and, dare I say, obfuscatory length, in that excellent publication Old Pedant's Notes and Queries, and I fear I must refer you to Vol.xviii, pp323-412. Yours in despair,
Ethelfrid Spens-Dabney

HAVE YOU NO SHAME! There is no piano uncovered on the Carrot-Risotto estate, no hatstand naked and volutpuous lest the understairs staff find their morals tempted by such devilish curvature! Sirs, I implore you to remove your godless babblings forthwith, or our Blessed Queen's peelers will be informed and you may hang! Good day to you!

I say! Fancy a picnic?

My I register my disgust at the lewd and lascivious practises celebrated by a group of Parisian artists. In particular a group of louche, dissolute bohemians led by the Scottish expatriate Lord Momus of Inversnecky, who are currently exhibiting only a few miles from our beloved monarch.

I took my consort to the recent exhibition in London and I was affronted by primitive daubs which look as though they were prepared by a child or even worse an African Negro. If these charlatans are not purged of their unchristian ways then god and empire will suffer.

Your respectful servant

This Reader has recieved special Dispensation from her Husband to write to register her concern and dismay about the most Appalling quality of persons in attendance at the recent Great Exhibition in Mr. Paxton's palace and like-wise at the Exhibition of Paintings at the Royal Academy, Str., Lon.

Yours truly was shocked most deplorably by the failure of those organising such entertainments to fail to discern whatsoever among those permitted to make ingress into such Exhibition areas, in that it was markedly apparent that unconscionably Common persons were within dangerous proximity to this and other Gentle-persons, in all likelihood exposing the latter to their Vile poxes, guttersniped accents, Ideations of Bohemianism and other wretched by-products of their congregations in Chelsea and other "Laboratories of Experimentalism," as your correspondent had chance to overhear described theaforementioned practices most dissolute.

Immediately following such dangerous exposure, Yours Truly instructed her maid to incinerate all boots, boot-heels, boot-laces, stockings, petticoats, ribbons, rosettes, corsets, corset-laces, vestments, foundation garments, whalebones, tulles, taffetas, muslins, gloves, muffs, hats, parasols, parasol tassels, hats, hat-bands, hat-flowers, hair-nets, cameos, lockets, crinolines, stationery items, and other such items as may have come into contact with the Dangerous inhabitants of Bohemia and adjourned to Epsom for several weeks of bathing, purification and refreshment of the true spirit of Brittania. She urges those of this readership as which may have suffered similar contamination to do the same.

Alarmedly,

Mrs. R------, F., The Hon.
Belgravia,
Lond.

(although the Koh-i-Noor diamond was rather diverting. God Save the Empire!)

http://phonatic.berlinweb.de/cylinder.de/photo/m010.jpg

We do most heartily recommend these most Modern Contraptions as a boon for all prospective Cylinder-Wallahs whose assumed duty it is to let fall various airs and refrains in providing for the entertainment of a discerning populace in our refined dancing establishments.

http://www.inkyfingers.com/RECORD/SANDERSEX/SandersBFCygnet.jpg

These most illustrious items enable fully adjustable rotation speeds to be acheived by suitable manipulations of the turning handles, thereby facilitating a most efficacious combination of appointments, and allowing perchance for the simultaneous utilisation of numerous wax cylinders across a multiplicity of such apparatus, by those whose possession of a nature bold enough to embark upon such deeds of musical derring-do may surely result in the quickening of many a young lady's pulse.

http://www.nipperhead.com/graphics/gallery/ac_edtr1.jpg

http://www.nipperhead.com/graphics/gallery/ac_edtr2.jpg

In addition, behold the enhancement of one's popularity and social status that may be achieved as a consequence of such an undertaking:

http://www.edisonshop.com/phonographic/image1.jpg

Whilst we are sure that such activities will be embarked upon by certain gentlemen of quality and distinction, others may rest assured that our cultural standards will remain: for it is indubitably the case that there shall never come a time in which the majority of the great unwashed might possibly regard themselves as possessed of suitably robust character and refined taste to indulge in such endeavours.

I have gained employment at the offices of Thimble, Dean & Ullathorne. The work is hard but I am making a farthing a day. How is Little Jim's leg?

In particular, I have in mind the conspicuous silence of your most outspoken reviewers regarding my recent inquiry into Miss Sontag's lately-promulgated slim volume. Their reticence in this matter betrays a vulgar dinge. It pains me to call attention to the shadows of philistinism creeping across the frontispiece of your once estimible institution. That I should feel compelled to do so before elevensies is a telling disgrace. This will not stand.
Yours, etc.

Rupert Bertleby-Scowells

On my return from the sub-continent, I read in theExaminer-Gazette-Bugle that a Miss Anning of Lyme Regis has lately unearthed what can only be described as a Sea-Serpent (to whit, the petrified bones thereof) of provenance unbeknownst to science and man.

Praise be on high to our gracious God for His unending challenge to our incontinent complacency with His glorious creations!

I remain, Sir, a dizzy, swooning female of no worth outside the scullery and boudoir who really should concentrate on her needlepoint,

Yours &c.,
Preponderance Carstairs-Fax-Haugh (Mrs.)

Dear Sirs,

I write to bid you all adieu! My faithful servant Passepartout and I depart this very evening on our quest to traverse all four continents in eighty days. Such folly! It is my sincerest hope that no Indian princesses will fall in love with me en-route.

With kind regards.

Yours etc.,

P Fogg, Esq

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/images/advert_wood.gif

PRU DEAR: MOST PERTURBED BY LACK OF RESPONSE. YOUR BROTHER A THANKLESS BORE. PARIS FINISHED - CHAT NOIR A MORTUARY, BILHAUD COLOURLESS AND THIS SATIE CHAP A CHARLATAN AS IT TURNS OUT. NOW EN ROUTE WILLIAMSBURG NY. PINK THE NEW RED.

CHAUNCEY

http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/2HISTORY/AtoZHist/Review/aaimages/3Barter/displaya.jpg

In this age of gaily-colored novelties inflaming the senses and aggravating the desires, the Harvell-Roebuck Catalog is a beacon of purest light, shining from pines to prairie to mountain and back hence. Our drably arranged and cheaply captured photo-pictorials act as a helpful reminder of the values of aesthetic purity and familial succour, a shelter from both the dangers of the science of physics, as well as the mind-dirtying qualities of the City, blackened as it is with the soot of factories and their workers, worrisome immigrants and their filthy children, and cheap gewgaws of every sort, on every corner. We are the only concern of our kind in America dedicated to the advancement of the American consumers unending quest to find solace in times of great internal turmoil and domestic distress in the virtue of the objects they surround themselves with. We are Quite Certain indeed that our concerns can be easily enmeshed with your own, transplanting, as it were, the values of America to your own shores without disrupting the homogeneous qualities of your persons.

The contents of our Catalog can be easily transposed to both the qualities of your native tongue, in both the every day vernacular and languages other than Englishe, proper. We would advise our distributorial customers to prepare their domestic catalogs with the utmost care to make sure that the essential qualities of the products contained therein are suitably obscured, designed, as they are, for brane dead hicks and not those versed in the shrewdity of either science, mathematics or manufacture. While it is of course important to not misrepresent yourself in any way thereby bringing dishonour to the Organization itself, all pertinent information relating to the quality of products, their healthfulness and safety should be presented in such a manner unable to be easily read without the aid of magnification, something we have dubbed Small Print.

All language should be designed to be easily understood by even the most illiterate individual. The use of pictoral diagrams are often preferred to the written language for this very reason. (Excepting, of course, the aforementioned Fine Print.) The more educated and cosmopolitan reader has little need for our products, and indeed will likely be repulsed by their cheapness and gaudily obvious presentation. Only through the continued reinforcement of the implied division between social strata of your consumer can we hope to build the number of possible consumers of lesser quality goods. At All Times, it is necessary to reflect notions off current class superiority, without grossely overstating your case.

Here are a list of products among the many thousands offered from our spacious and newly aerated warehouse faculties located around the United States:

Candy Dishes, crudely assembled from discarded barge metals then craftily painted in bright primary colors to disguised their reclaimed nature.

Gingham, material fabric of possibly Deamonic origin, popular with farmers wives.

Phonograph Records, in both Military and Religious styles, free from the dangerous negroidal influences of the new “Ragtime.”

Cattle Brands, which, with a minimum of rebranding (please assume no punning intentions on our parts), can be easily converted from disused abbaitoir materials to Child and Infant disciplinary instruments.

Indian Reservations, an easily solution to a widespread problem. Discounts to Federal Officials. Easily moved to The West Indies, The Orientale Sub-Continent or other “problem areas.”

Pencil and “Scratch” Paper, popular novelty for the staving of boredom, suicide.

We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with your nations, a bridge to be built not only between cultures but within a newly fermented system of Commerce. Please respond at your earliest convenience.

With the Utmost Sincerity,
Jess Harvell
President, Harvell-Roebuck

In this age of gaily-colored novelties inflaming the senses and aggravating the desires, the Harvell-Roebuck Catalog is a beacon of purest light, shining from pines to prairie to mountain and back hence. Our drably arranged and cheaply captured photo-pictorials act as a helpful reminder of the values of aesthetic purity and familial succour, a shelter from both the dangers of the science of physics, as well as the mind-dirtying qualities of the City, blackened as it is with the soot of factories and their workers, worrisome immigrants and their filthy children, and cheap gewgaws of every sort, on every corner. We are the only concern of our kind in America dedicated to the advancement of the American consumers unending quest to find solace in times of great internal turmoil and domestic distress in the virtue of the objects they surround themselves with. We are Quite Certain indeed that our concerns can be easily enmeshed with your own, transplanting, as it were, the values of America to your own shores without disrupting the homogeneous qualities of your persons.

The contents of our Catalog can be easily transposed to both the qualities of your native tongue, in both the every day vernacular and languages other than Englishe, proper. We would advise our distributorial customers to prepare their domestic catalogs with the utmost care to make sure that the essential qualities of the products contained therein are suitably obscured, designed, as they are, for brane dead hicks and not those versed in the shrewdity of either science, mathematics or manufacture. While it is of course important to not misrepresent yourself in any way thereby bringing dishonour to the Organization itself, all pertinent information relating to the quality of products, their healthfulness and safety should be presented in such a manner unable to be easily read without the aid of magnification, something we have dubbed Small Print.

All language should be designed to be easily understood by even the most illiterate individual. The use of pictoral diagrams are often preferred to the written language for this very reason. (Excepting, of course, the aforementioned Fine Print.) The more educated and cosmopolitan reader has little need for our products, and indeed will likely be repulsed by their cheapness and gaudily obvious presentation. Only through the continued reinforcement of the implied division between social strata of your consumer can we hope to build the number of possible consumers of lesser quality goods. At All Times, it is necessary to reflect notions off current class superiority, without grossely overstating your case.

Here are a list of products among the many thousands offered from our spacious and newly aerated warehouse faculties located around the United States:

Candy Dishes, crudely assembled from discarded barge metals then craftily painted in bright primary colors to disguised their reclaimed nature.

Gingham, material fabric of possibly Deamonic origin, popular with farmers wives.

Phonograph Records, in both Military and Religious styles, free from the dangerous negroidal influences of the new “Ragtime.”

Cattle Brands, which, with a minimum of rebranding (please assume no punning intentions on our parts), can be easily converted from disused abbaitoir materials to Child and Infant disciplinary instruments.

Indian Reservations, an easily solution to a widespread problem. Discounts to Federal Officials. Easily moved to The West Indies, The Orientale Sub-Continent or other “problem areas.”

Pencil and “Scratch” Paper, popular novelty for the staving of boredom, suicide.

We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with your nations, a bridge to be built not only between cultures but within a newly fermented system of Commerce. Please respond at your earliest convenience.

With the Utmost Sincerity,
Jess Harvell
President, Harvell-Roebuck

CHAUNCEY

I appear to have done myself a mischief as a result of the frivolity expressed above. I therefore can only see fit to denounce this entire organ as being the work of the evil micturating gods of the darkest congo, seeking as they do to make all god-fearing Englishmen's manhoods spurt the foul liqour of urea into their trouser legs.

Goddamn you sirs, and all your runty little humours.

It is with some trepidation but much pleasure that I put pen to paper in this submission to your most worthy journal. My desire is simply to assure you that we in the COLONIES are not without a very deep and true admiration and REGARD for your writings.

The wholesome entertainment and considered reflections on issues of the day have done much to lighten long hours spent so far from the more refined scenes of your hemisphere. Not least of our enjoyment comes from the contribution of ladies (!) whom, while obviously of the HIGHEST social tone, are allowed - or even encouraged - to express their views on both frivolous and serious topics IN MIXED COMPANY. Indeed, this development gives me leave to hope that our own society, whilst necessarily some distance behind, may achieve this most DESIRABLE state.

Yours etc

I have recently had an advanced sighting of the E........ Review's listing of the 100 most influential books of poetry in the nineteenth century. No body familiar with your journal will be surprised to learn that the list is a tediously predictable one, in which the Lakist prejudices of the editorial staff and more elderly reviewers is every where displayed. As ever the baleful and distorting influence of critics such as Mr Ruskin and Mr Arnold holds sway over the tiresomely familiar selections of reviewers whose instinct is ever to toady to the establishment in return for regular publication in a journal with a large circulation; and the myth that the golden age of romantic poetry coincided with the adolescence of most of the regular contributers continues to be perpetuated.

As we might expect, Mr Wordsworth dominates proceedings. "Lyrical Ballads" (yawn) is once again top of the list, and a further three of Mr Wordsworth's works appear in the top ten, including both editions of "The Prelude". Mr Coleridge and even the unreadable Mr Southey both appear high on the list and there are equally predictable lofty placings for Lord Byron and Messrs Keats and Shelley. The handful of token moderns are dominated - no surpise here - by safe choices within the lakist tradition such as Lord Tennyson and Mr Browning.

One could excuse the preference for poets from the early part of the century if the list included a proper recognition of the very great genius of Mr William Blake; but as usual any thing that challenges the narrow prejudices of the Lakist elite is all but overlooked. There is a token appearance at number 18 for the uncharacteristically accessible "Songs of Innocence and Experience" and "Milton" creeps in at number 97; but of the greatest poetic work of our age, "Jerusalem, Emanation of the Giant Albion" there is, of course, no sign.

The fresh watery afternoons of autumn have passed and now I am so many days nearer to the joyful-spirited holidays. At the close of one week I will be able to quit the gloomy shuttered blinds of my chamber and set out on my first ride to Paris, escorted by my True Love. Outstretched on foreign sheets, we will watch the winter moon together as it gives strength and comfort to our sustaining union.

I have recently, upon recommendation of my good friend Mr. Taliaferro (pronounced, of course, as "Tolliver"), obtained a copy of your broadsheet for my edification and delight. Imagine my horror to read the pornographic imaginings of one Miss Mc---! I shall never read your filthy, un-Christian publication again -- at least not until such time as you have turned your broadsheet into an illustrated.

Yrs in Aroused Dismay,

Reginald P. Featherbottom (Mrs.)

Taking Sides: Cads vs. Boundahs

Yours, &c.

Yours etc.

As to Cads and Boundahs, the former merits a horsewhipping, the latter a sound thrashing; neither should ever darken the doors of this august club.

1 pr. elbow length white calf
1 pr. tan leather wrist length
1 pr. black leather wrist length
1 pr. black knit imprinted with Nike advertisement
1/2 pr. black, leather, oversized glove, purchased for the healthful enjoyment of American-style rounders

Dearest Alice,

In recent days I spend my hours with my brushes. At the top of this letter you can see a sketch for my most recent watercolor.

Last night my cousin Edouard from New Orleans, who is visiting us, escorted me (and Tante Amelie to watch over us) to a music hall. One of the performers was the American poet Vachel Lindsay who, in an act he calls "the Higher Vaudeville," recites his verses to the accompaniment of a drummer. His poem, "General Booth Enters Into Heaven" was highly dramatic and quite effective, even though the drummer sounded as if he was directly imitating the Salvation Army bands to be heard on every London street corner in the last several years.

Mr. Lindsay then recited several more of his poems, in a manner of speaking that sounded as if he wanted to start singing his rhymes in a minor key in an extremely dramatic fashion. During these verses Edouard showed on his face the most extraordinary disagreeability. He later told me that Mr. Lindsay's performance style powerfully recalled the "spirituals" which in the American South Negro laborers chant in their churches and while working the fields. I gather from Edouard that these spirituals are considered unsuitable for gentlewomen to hear.

Later during an intermission, Edouard escorted me and Tante Amelie about the music hall's corridors, where again we encountered Mr. Lindsay. I had hoped to ask him about his performance style, but did not have the opportunity to do so because of the other audience members wishing to speak to him. However, I did purchase and receive from Mr. Lindsay's hands a volume of his poems. How very different from that charity bazaar years ago to which our mothers brought us, where Mr. Browning read from his poetic works! I promise to write more when I have had the chance to read these verses.

Devotedly yours,
Julia

I arrived smartly at the appropriate hour, only to be accosted by a ruffian, who claimed to be in your employ. Said ruffian proceeded to check my belongings, and ask questions of the contents of my flask, I informed him that it was the finest French spa water. This uncouth yob then made it clear that bevarages were not allowed in your theatre under your strict orders, I was most bemused having been a patron of your establishment for many years. I had to concead and allow my precious water to be taken from my person, though I made it clear that I would write to you in complaint.

I eagerly await your reply, and hope that we can meet to discuss this demeaning incident.

Yours in bemusement

(please, it's my favourite thread - newcomers totally should read it)

I detect in society increasingly strident calls to extend the franchise to ladies. I cannot understand why such calls receive comment in your organ, as it clear to all right-thinking men that such a more appaling vista it would be difficult to contemplate. I do not propose to engage with the claims made by its adherents, as to do so would lend then a veneer of respoectability that they most assuredly do not deserve and I humbly beg that you do the same. If such foul sentiments are available for contemplation by the feeble-minded, we will soon have more despicable causes thrust upon us. The road from suffrage leads clearly and with speed to Gommorroh, and doubtless the release from incarceration of the foul Mr Wilde and his band of devilish sodomoites.

I remain, sir,

Yours etc

TS: T.H. Huxley vs Bishop Wilberforce

Mercury vs Arsenic: what choose you for healthsome and vivacious longevity?

Worst Genre Thred Ever

You misspelled "best"

This 19th c. chic has really taken off.

I like all the antlers and silhouettes.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/150/381771570_e2b7d130c2.jpg

http://www.woodleyandbunny.com/images/logo.gif

http://www.latteart.org/images/London/Sketch.jpg

I say! That appears to be the tearooms of that fine Mayfair establishment Sketch, beloved of ladies who luncheon!

is this 2002 revival chic

deer silohuette patterns is a timewarp but not quite the one you're talking about

My, don't those new full-colour pictograms look fine! They'll be moving and talking next, mark my words, like something straight from the pages one of Mr. Wells' more fanciful scientific romances!

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/9817/indieelgarqu0.jpg

Do tell me about the Olde, Mr. Padgett! You do it so awfully well.

Smashing. I found this while searching for an unrelated thread and am now most happy as this is one of my favorite threads on the Internet.