The Girl's Own Paper, vol. VIII., no. 377, March 19, 1887 — John Shaqi
The Girl's Own Paper, vol. VIII., no. 377, March 19, 1887Various
General
The Girl's Own Paper, vol. VIII., no. 377, March 19, 1887
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
A gilt egg, with a white lily on it, or a silvered one with a daffodil,
looks very pretty; violets and primroses, emblems of spring, are also
appropriate, while eggs with butterflies or small birds bearing mottoes
painted on them, are much appreciated by children. When painted in
water colours, the eggs can easily be varnished. On Easter day I once
saw the breakfast eggs which the cook had boiled, some with red and
some with blue dye in the water, sent to table in a nest of green moss
lined with a little white wool; the eggs were only cooked the usual
time, and were greatly relished by the younger members of the family.
I would recommend the use of Easter eggs to those girls who take
Sunday-school classes; they are very good mediums for giving precepts
or words of advice; a judiciously chosen motto or text may often do a
great deal in helping a child or person to correct a fault, and a motto
is more attractive on an ornamental egg than in a book.
I remember a little German book called “Ostereier” (Easter eggs), in
which a charming account is given of an Easter festival, when motto
eggs were distributed to a number of children. Some of the rhymes given
are very pretty; they lose in translation, but are such as “Goodness,
not gold, wins love and trust,” “For meat and drink the giver thank,”
“A good conscience makes a soft pillow.”
Such sentences as these do for quite small children, but a short verse
from a hymn or a text can easily be written on an egg. They look very
well coloured pale blue or mottled green and blue, as directed above,
and the words written on after with red, or blue ink of a darker
colour, and a little ornamentation round. For school-children water
colours should not be used in painting the eggs, for the warm and often
moist hands of the recipients of these little gifts would smear the
paint.
We must now come to another kind of egg I have found much appreciated,
as it is eatable, though imitation only. It is prepared thus: Procure
some half egg shells which you can colour or not, as you please, but
you must cut the edges as smooth as you can with a pair of small, sharp
scissors; next take one pound of ground almonds (they can be bought
ready prepared), mix with the beaten whites of three, or if small, four
eggs, add a teaspoonful of orange flower water, or a little more, if
needed, make into a paste, and stir in one pound of fine sifted loaf
sugar, and work with a wooden spoon into a smooth paste; next shake a
little icing sugar into the half shells, and fill them with the almond
paste, scoop a piece out of the centre of each half, and as you put the
two halves together insert a preserved apricot (dried) without a stone;
if the apricots are too large use half ones, but whether large or small
they must be pressed into suitable shapes before they are used, as they
have to represent the yolks of the eggs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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