The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-06-16
ideas for dWorueu.

N ny tAAN
oAicers OF the ship, gave a reception ON
poafo the new man-of-war Full. at TIL
Jury locks, says a London letter to Har-
pers Bazaar. The weather was threatening
ana II the hosts had been mere Europeans
probably nine-tenths Of the invited
guests would have stopped at home. As
It was. the word Japanese" was SO fas-
canatlng that masses Of martly-dressed
persons turned out. The thing was done
~ = pfincely scale. There were two
special trains down and two UP, and all
were crowded. Th expedition cost none
" the guests anything but cab fares. 1t
lakes ABOUT an hour to get to the docks
ana We have a long walk from the station
70 the ship, over puddly black soil. The
sailors, who stood all along the upper
Geek OF the Full dressed like English
biuejackets and looking like boys), had
invented and made many pleasing decora-
tons for the ship. There was a novel
sort of fountain spouting away through
a tube, and falling back into what SEEM
ea to be an inverted skeleton umbrella
made of bamboo; the volume of water
squirting up played with a ball, which
rose. fell and balanced on the Jet, and
pesaae 1t was a nameless monster fpainted
canvas bamboo, / suspect which
seemed about to catch the ball enc
II descended. This was outside the ship,
near the bow, and was designed obviously
70 entertain the long string of guests who
had to wait their turn before reaching the
gangway.
On boarding the great ship, we passed
between graceful draperies of bunting and
great sheaves of paper cherry blossoms
manufactured by the sailors. In every
available space these graceful red and
white flowers waved above us. The COM
pany had no sooner got under cover of the
g and canvas with which the deck was
rooted than sheets and bucketfuls of rain
fell. with occasional sharp dashes of hall
stones. There was a Japanese play going
on, SO well attended that the first per-
Torrance was invisible to me, but later in
the day saw enough of the curious atti-
tudes. se-cailed dances, and dramatic cpl
sodes to realize how intensely different
everything japanese is from anything An
g~lo-Saxon. A really pretty sailor-boy
made a charming girl. and the whole
thing, of course, recalled the immortal
Mikado, n testified to the accuracy of
the imitation of Jap life therein repre-
scented. On the lowest deck there were
quantities of paper flowers planted in
sawdust-the sweet iris (marvellously well
done); great peonies, with bulbs of cleo
trio light in their hearts; graceful wisteria
hanging down from a trelliswork; rows
of the National chrysanthemum; and
everywhere the a~llpervading cherry bios
som. Many women begged, borrowed, or
stole. these-there was such a profusion
of them. it seemed a pity to waste them
and when we arrived in town we must
have looked like the members of some
society. all bearing the same badge. The
exquisitely polite officers winked at these
d~epredations, but, I afterward heard,
there was a second reception next day,
they must have grumbled inwardly.
I am spending Easter in a marvellous
old abbey in Oxfordshire. Last night l
slept in a bed which was occupied by
Charles I. on his way to Edgehill, and
earlier by James 1. when he came to be
godfather to one of the children of the
aeobIe house. The damask -hangings-red,
with a pattern of subdued brownish-yel-
1ow-are precisely the same as they were
in the time Of the Stuarts. The Chimney
piece is of wonderfully carved old oak,
the furniture of about the same period
and style. On one side of the room
(Which is papered with two shade of
crimson} hangs a copy of the famous por-
trait of Charles l., in which there are
three -heads-profile, -three-quarter and
full face yer the door is a picture of
James l., and over the washstand a
small one of Henrietta Maria. In another
wing of the house is the room used by
George ". when Prince of Wales. The
headboard of the bed is covered with
velvet embroidered with three feathers
and the princely motto, Itch diem" Not
far off is a room in which the hangings
and eounterpane were worked by Mary
Stuart and her ladies. The house is a
vast museum of exquisite things. 1t
would take months simply to catalogue
them. There are scores of splendid old
portraits (vandycks, a Holbein, a Sir
Joshua, and several Lelys). pictures of
the family and time of the Tudors to the
present day, and of several crowned
heads-Elizabeth, Mary of England,
Henry vii, Prince Rupert, and his
mother, Elizabeth of Bohemia.
80
When one looks at the outside of the
old pile-the gates covered with ivy, the
long low windows with loaded panes-one
wonders why the Incompatible Tudor
style ever went out of fashion, and why
modern atrocities ever tried to take its
place. The awns are like emerald velvet
enamelled with daisies. The noble old
trees are budding. and. with their still
bare boughs. are almost as beautiful as
In the verdure of May and june. English
trees are the only ones / know which are
not naked, though undressed. There is a
patti leading to two lakes n a waterfall,
and all along it on the moss cluster the
pale sweet primroses, a veritable "prim-
rose path of dalhance.'' There is a pro-
found quiet, broken only by the song of
birds and the scream of the arrogant pea
cocks. which sun their jewelled tails on
the lawns about the house. Every mo-
ment spent in such a house is a precious
drop in the ocean of experience. There
IS a repose, a beauty, a sense of placid
well-being in these surroundings which
make one 10th to return to the sordid
hustle of town. And to have seen one
such home, with its noble master and
mfstress-noble in highest sense, simple,
capable, unselish, the soul of courtesy
and Kindness, fit Representatives of long
lines Of distinguished men and women
is to realize something of the people who