深圳英语培训

深圳英语 "Keeping Open House" was a merry custom; it has gone, like the all- day picnic in the woods, and like thatprettiest of all vanished customs, the serenade. When a lively girl visited the town she did not long gounserenaded, though a visitor was not indeed needed to excuse a serenade. Of a summer night, youngmen would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window-- or, it might be, her father's, or that of an ailingmaiden aunt--and flute, harp, fiddle, 'cello, cornet, and bass viol would presently release to the dulcet starssuch melodies as sing through "You'll Remember Me," "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls," "SilverThreads Among the Gold," "Kathleen Mavourneen," or "The Soldier's Farewell." They had other music to offer, too, for these were the happy days of "Olivette" and "The Macotte" and "TheChimes of Normandy" and "Girofle- Girofla" and "Fra Diavola." Better than that, these were the days of"Pinafore" and "The Pirates of Penzance" and of "Patience." This last was needed in the Midland town, aselsewhere, for the "aesthetic movement" had reached thus far from London, and terrible things were beingdone to honest old furniture. Maidens sawed what-nots in two, and gilded the remains. They took therockers from rocking- chairs and gilded the inadequate legs; they gilded the easels that supported thecrayon portraits of their deceased uncles. In the new spirit of art they sold old clocks for new, and threw waxflowers and wax fruit, and the protecting glass domes, out upon the trash-heap. They filled vases withpeacock feathers, or cattails, or sumac, or sunflowers, and set the vases upon mantelpieces and marble-topped tables. They embroidered daisies (which they called "marguerites") and sunflowers and sumac andcat- tails and owls and peacock feathers upon plush screens and upon heavy cushions, then strewed thesecushions upon floors where fathers fell over them in the dark. In the teeth of sinful oratory, the daughterswent on embroidering: they embroidered daisies and sunflo wers and sumac and cat- tails and owls andpeacock feathers upon "throws" which they had the courage to drape upon horsehair sofas; they paintedowls and daisies and sunflowers and sumac and cat- tails and peacock feathers upon tambourines. Theyhung Chinese umbrellas of paper to the chandeliers; they nailed paper fans to the walls. They "studied"painting on china, these girls; they sang Tosti's new songs; they sometimes still practiced the old, genteelhabit of lady- fainting, and were most charming of all when they drove forth, three or four in a basketphaeton, on a spring morning.