Her Season in Bath: A Story of Bygone Days
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Marshall Emma. Her Season in Bath: A Story of Bygone Days
CHAPTER I. COIFFEUR
CHAPTER II. THE TIDE OF FASHION
CHAPTER III. ANOTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE
CHAPTER IV. MUSIC
CHAPTER V. GRISELDA! GRISELDA!
CHAPTER VI. GRAVE AND GAY
CHAPTER VII. THE VASE OF PARNASSUS
CHAPTER VIII. ON THE TRACK
CHAPTER IX. WATCHED!
CHAPTER X. A PROPOSAL
CHAPTER XI. A LETTER
CHAPTER XII. DISCOVERED
CHAPTER XIII. THE PLOT THICKENS
CHAPTER XIV. BRAWLS
CHAPTER XV. CHALLENGED
CHAPTER XVI. IN THE EARLY MORNING
CHAPTER XVII. THE BITTER END
CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
CHAPTER XIX. TEN YEARS LATER – 1790
Отрывок из книги
It was the height of the Bath season in 1779, and there was scarcely any part of the city which did not feel the effect of the great tide of amusement and pleasure, which set in year by year with ever-increasing force, and made the streets, and parades, and terraces alive with gaily-dressed fashionable ladies and their attendant beaux.
The chair-men had a fine trade, so had the mantua-makers and dressmakers, to say nothing of the hairdressers, who were skilled in the art of building up the powdered bastions, which rose on many a fair young head, and made the slender neck which supported them bend like a lily-stalk with their weight. Such head-gear was appropriate for the maze of the stately minuet and Saraband, but would be a serious inconvenience if worn now-a-days, when the whirl of the waltz seems to grow ever faster and faster, and the "last square" remaining in favour is often turned into a romp, which bears the name of "Polka Lancers." There was a certain grace and poetry in those old-world dances, and they belonged to an age when there was less hurry and bustle, and all locomotion was leisurely; when our great-grandmothers did not rush madly through the country, and through Europe, as if speed was the one thing to attain in travelling, and breathless haste the great charm of travel.
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Samuel obeyed, and took leave; while Griselda, after a passing glance at her head and shoulders in the mirror, retired to her own room on the upper story, and, taking a violin from a case, began to draw the bow over the strings.
"If only I could make you sing to me as their fiddles sang last night! If only I had a voice like that sister of Mr. Herschel's! Ah! that song from the 'Messiah' – if only I could play it!" And then, after several attempts, Griselda did bring out the air of the song which, perhaps of all others, fastens on ear and heart alike in that sublime oratorio:
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