Grandmother, born in County Tyrone, believed as a good Irishwoman that there were only three kinds of tea fit to drink, none of th...em storebought. The first quality was kept, sensibly enough, in China. The second picking was sent directly to Ireland. The third and lowest grade went, of course, to the benighted British. And all the tea used in our house came once a year, in one or two beautiful soldered tin boxes, from Dublin. Then only would we know it to be second to what the Dowager Empress of China was drinking, while the other Old Lady in Buckingham Palace sipped our dregs, as served her right. ...My grandmother died before tea bags. I am grateful. My mother never admitted their existence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In correct theology, the Virgin ought not to be represented in bed, for she could not suffer like ordinary women, but her palace a...t Chartres is not much troubled by theology, and to her, as empress-mother, the pain of child-birth was a pleasure which she wanted her people to share.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have to recognise, that the gin-palace, like many other evils, although a poisonous, is still a natural outgrowth of our social... conditions. The tap-room in many cases is the poor man's only parlour. Many a man takes to beer, not from the love of beer, but from a natural craving for the light, warmth, company, and comfort which is thrown in along with the beer, and which he cannot get excepting by buying beer. Reformers will never get rid of the drink shop until they can outbid it in the subsidiary attractions which it offers to its customers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I ... walked to the Abbey of Holyroodhouse once to the Palace itself, once to the crown of Scotland above the gate in front, and o...nce to the venerable old Chapel. I next stood in the court before the Palace, and bowed thrice to Arthur Seat, that lofty romantic mountain on which I have so often strayed in my days of youth and felt the raptures of a soul filled with ideas of the magnificence of God and his creation. Having thus gratified my agreeable whim and superstitious humour, I felt a warm glow of satisfaction.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »