Let's Have A Jane Austen Tea and Parlor Party!

Or maybe a weekend retreat?

This coming July will mark the 200th year of Jane Austen's Death. Jane Austen has brought so much wit, humor and just plain good reading to us, we are so thankful for her life!    So, why not consider throwing a Jane Austen Themed Tea and Parlor Party?  I am beginning to make plans for mine, which means gathering up items over time that might come into play.   

Tea cup and tier cookie platter on clearance aisle at Ross.  Tea pot from Amazon.

I love tea accessories.  I love to have tea parties, but must admit that I haven't them as often as I should.   I am always trying to find frugal ways to decorate and to have themed parties.  I am slowly building up my Jane Austen themed party items.  I go to discount stores and always scour  the clearance aisles,  and of course the thrift stores are always great places to find inexpensive items.  I do not want you to think that I spend extravagant amounts of money on these items.   I am really just a poor relation from "Cheapside".  ;-)  I want  to encourage you to be frugal too.  So, I will try to let you know where I get my items (extremely discounted) so you can check these places out as well.   If you are belong to a  one income family like mine, your bread winner will love you for this.  

Cake stand for my cookies, borrowed from my daughter in law, who said she bought it for $5!

After a delightful time of tea, it might be refreshing to have a few activities .    How about playing this wonderful card game:  Marrying Mr. Darcy?  This darling game came to me by way of my very sweet niece , Sarah.  Thank you Sarah, you can see it will be put to GOOD use!

Another activity could be some relaxing coloring time from the  Pride and Prejudice coloring book!

It is always so much fun to have an envelope making session for some good Jane Austen themed letter writing.  Be sure to take advantage of deep discounts at crafting stores when they put their scrapbooking paper half off or more.  Try to make it your motto "Never Pay Full Price"!  It could even turn into a letter writing social!  Have your like minded friends bring a stash of fun things to share, and perhaps making an entire afternoon of it.  Who knows....it might even morph into a Jane Austen weekend retreat!  Now that would be quite felicitous, would it not?  

What about you?  Do you have some ideas that you could share perhaps about  a Jane Austen themed party?

Write Letter,

Write often!

Lady Pamela

The Art Of Keeping Warm

The Art of Keeping Warm, Literary--ily Speaking!

The east coast, and possibly much of the country is under a storm warning...we may get up to 8 inches of snow.  I know, I know...you folks in the north and midwest are crying out at a mere 8 inches.   However, Richmond IS the gateway to the SOUTH!  It shouldn't be that cold here!  So it is time to break out the socks!  And not ANY socks will do... especially when these gorgeous Jane Austen quotation socks are available!

I had to grab my "Emma" from my 16 year old son's room.  Yes you heard that correctly, my 16 year old son is taking British literature and was assigned to read Emma last semester.  He was nearly finished with the book when we decided to watch the  1996 Gwyneth Paltrow movie together.  He absolutely loved it, and it cleared up some of the nuances  of language that he wasn't quite getting by reading.  Actually, I didn't know he laid hold of  my favorite edition....the edges are curled a bit, but that is a SMALL price to pay to have a 16 year old boy read Austen!  

The Jane Austen Quote on the sock reads:  "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like 

reading." Jane Austen  

I couldn't agree more!

Teavana White Chocolate Peppermint Tea (to die for, delicious!)

After taking this picture....I had to grab a mug and fill it to the brim to warm my hands.  That is the down side to living in a 100 year old Virginian farm house.  So grab your socks, hot beverage, a favorite Jane Austen Book and hunker down...that's the art of staying warm!

Stay warm!

Write Letters 

Write Often,

Lady Pamela

The Model Letter Writer

Are you a Model Letter Writer?

The Model Letter Writer

Or, Art of Polite Correspondence 

For

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Containing A 

Complete Essay on Letter Writing,

Also A Course Of Interesting Letters On

BUSINESS, LOVE, COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE

BY:  NELLIE GREENWAY (c.  1910)

This book is AMAZING!  Never mind that the book is literally  crumbling in my very hands, it is a gem in the rough.   What really caught my eye was the introduction which is a 28 page Essay on Letter Writing.  Oh yes, this is definitely up my ally.  

I hope to give my readers little snippets of this charming book over time.  But, dear reader, be sure to have a dictionary close at hand.  You will find, sadly, that our vocabulary has quite shrunk over time.   So let us begin with a portion from the Essay.

CONCISENESS OR PROLIXITY OF STYLE

Conciseness is one of the charms of letter -writing: we do not mean to say that a letter should not contain sufficient facts , ideas, and feelings; but they ought to be as briefly expressed as perspicuity and elegance will permit.  If we encounter an idea with verbiage, it loses it power.  There are some persons who, when they express a feeling or a thought, of which simplicity should be the charm, clothe it with all the verbs they possess: this is like wearing one's whole wardrobe at once;the figure is lost in the mass of drapery.  Lengthened periods are as much out of place in a letter as they would be in conversation, of which letters may be called the prototype; for they tire the reader even more than they would the hearer : when written, their faults are also perceived with much less difficulty than when spoken.  Our style of course, may rise with our subject: but all parade of words should be dropped in a familiar epistle.  The death of a friend  or relation , a calamity, or any circumstance of grave importance should not be communicated in the same manner as a trifling occurrence , or even a happy event: brevity, in these cases , is beauty; in those it would be deemed unfeeling and abrupt.  "You ask me to send you news of your favorite school-fellow, Harriet:--she is married."  This mode of communicating such an even is unexceptionable: but it would be most improper to state the death of a person in the same manner;that is, by merely substituting "dead" for "married."  In announcing the death if a friend, we should communicate the fact in a way comporting with the gravity of the subject as thus--"It is with melancholy feelings I reply to your inquiries respecting our old school-fellow, Charles Grosvenor.  A few weeks ago he was the animated and intelligent companion of all around him,but he was seized with a typhus fever , the violence of which baffled the skill of his physicians, and terminated his life last week, at the house of his father."

But in aiming at the acquirement of an elegant and easy brevity, it is incumbent on us at once to avoid falling into a rugged or an enigmatical style, and becoming so concise as to be unintelligible.  Boileau, echoing Horace, says, "J evite d'être long ,et je divines obscure."  This is a fault which must be avoided; it is even better to be prol 'x and intelligible than brief and obscure.

To an absent friend, an elaborate letter will be most welcome: a stranger, a superior , or a person of whom the writer is seeks something, will recoil from a "folio of four pages" and, perhaps, throw it aside unread ,or, at best, but slightly skimmed over.  When the party, to whom a letter is addressed , is uninterested in the subject on which it is written, the writer  of it should display a brevity, which will attract attention, and insure a perusal :  no unnecessary ornament should be used, nor , in fact, anything introduced but what is important and bears strongly on the case stated, or the inquiry made.

All these little personal details and trifling circumstances which are so delightful in a letter from a friend, would fatigue and disgust a stranger, or a superior, to whom they are destitute of interest.

Lessons I learned from this portion:  

1.  Too  much flowery talk in a letter loses power.

2.  There is a balance between too much information and too little.  Avoid coldness with excessive conciseness.

3. Be sure to approach subjects of gravity (death of a friend, calamity ) with great care and sensitivity.

4.  Be conscience of your relationship with  the  recipient .  If the recipient is a total stranger,  then there needs to be brevity and  a "getting to the point" in the letter.

I hope you have enjoyed this little lesson on letter writing from the past.

Write Letters,

Write Often,

Lady Pamela