Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social ReformBarnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
General
Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform
Barnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class
Sometimes the men go off to play cricket or bowls, to see the puppies
or horses, or some other beasts particularly interesting to the
masculine mind; or perhaps the interminable game of rounders occupies
all the time. Sometimes swings, see-saws, or a row on the pond are
great amusements. ‘Oh dear, I think I’ve only just learnt to enjoy
myself,’ gasped one buxom woman of fifty, breathless with swinging
her neighbour, whose face told that her life’s holidays could without
difficulty be counted; while, to a few, the fact of sitting still and
looking out and feeling the quiet is pleasure enough. ‘I seem to see
further than ever I saw before,’ murmured a pale young mother, sitting
on the Upper Terrace at Hampstead, and as she said it she looked as if
the sight of the country just then, when her eyes were reopened by her
new motherhood, might, in another sense, make her see farther than she
had ever seen before.
If the garden is small and its resources soon ended, games must be
resorted to, and such games as ‘tersa,’ where running and motion
are enjoyed; the ‘ring and the string,’ when eyes and ears must be
on the alert; or ‘blow the candle blindfold’; all cause hearty fun,
especially when the unconscious blindfold, having walked crookedly,
energetically blows, as he thinks, at the candle, which is still
burning steadily a yard or two from him. On some of these occasions
the hostess has had her carriage out, and by taking four or five of
the guests at a time all have been able to have a short drive, and
see from a higher elevation something more of the country, ‘Well, I
don’t know that I was ever in a carriage before,’ said one woman, who
could hardly be said to have been _in_ one then, as she dismounted
from the box. ‘Except at funerals,’ corrected her neighbour. Might not
some of the extraordinary liking, which is so common among the poor,
for attending funerals be partly for the sake of the rare event of a
drive? Occasionally it is possible to get up a dance, with the help of
a fiddle or piano, and many a pale, worn face has lost, for the time
at least, its stamp of weariness as it grew interested in the ups and
downs of ‘Sir Roger de Coverley.’ ‘Bless me, if I ever thought to do
any dancing, except the dancing of babbies,’ was an unexpected comment
from my partner on one occasion; and many times have I since been
referred to to confirm the fact that ‘You did see me dancing, didn’t
you, ma’am?’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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