DOI article:
Le Gallienne, Richard: A seventh-story heaven
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27806#0022
18 A Seventh-story Heaven
faces, polished like mahogany—and the man inside so happy all
day slicing them with those wonderful long knives (which, of
course, the superior class of reader has never seen) worn away to
a veritable thread, a mere wire, but keen as Excalibur. Beauty
used to calculate in her quaint way how much steel was worn
away with each pound of ham, and how much therefore went to
the sandwich. And what an artist was the carver ! What a true
eye, what a firm flexible wrist—never a shaving of fat too much—
he was too great an artist for that. Then there were those dear
little cream cheeses and those little brown jugs of yellow cream,
come all the way from Devonshire—you could hear the cows
lowing across the rich pasture, and hear the milkmaids sing-
ing and the milk whizzing into the pail, as you looked at
them.
And then those perfectly lovely sausages—I beg the reader’s
pardon ! I forgot that the very mention of the word smacks of
vulgarity. Yet, all the same, I venture to think that a secret
taste for sausages among the upper classes is more widespread
than we have any idea of. I confess that Beauty and her poet
were at first ashamed of admitting their vulgar frailty to each
other. They needed to know each other very well first. Yet
there is nothing, when once confessed, that brings two people so
close as—a taste for sausages !
“You darling!” exclaimed Beauty with something like tears
in her voice, when her poet first admitted this touch of nature—
and then next moment they were in fits of laughter that a common
taste for a very “ low ” food should bring tears to their eyes !
But such are the vagaries of love—as you will know, if you know
anything about it—“ vulgar,” no doubt, though only the vulgar
would so describe them—for it is only vulgarity that is always
“ refined ” !
Then
faces, polished like mahogany—and the man inside so happy all
day slicing them with those wonderful long knives (which, of
course, the superior class of reader has never seen) worn away to
a veritable thread, a mere wire, but keen as Excalibur. Beauty
used to calculate in her quaint way how much steel was worn
away with each pound of ham, and how much therefore went to
the sandwich. And what an artist was the carver ! What a true
eye, what a firm flexible wrist—never a shaving of fat too much—
he was too great an artist for that. Then there were those dear
little cream cheeses and those little brown jugs of yellow cream,
come all the way from Devonshire—you could hear the cows
lowing across the rich pasture, and hear the milkmaids sing-
ing and the milk whizzing into the pail, as you looked at
them.
And then those perfectly lovely sausages—I beg the reader’s
pardon ! I forgot that the very mention of the word smacks of
vulgarity. Yet, all the same, I venture to think that a secret
taste for sausages among the upper classes is more widespread
than we have any idea of. I confess that Beauty and her poet
were at first ashamed of admitting their vulgar frailty to each
other. They needed to know each other very well first. Yet
there is nothing, when once confessed, that brings two people so
close as—a taste for sausages !
“You darling!” exclaimed Beauty with something like tears
in her voice, when her poet first admitted this touch of nature—
and then next moment they were in fits of laughter that a common
taste for a very “ low ” food should bring tears to their eyes !
But such are the vagaries of love—as you will know, if you know
anything about it—“ vulgar,” no doubt, though only the vulgar
would so describe them—for it is only vulgarity that is always
“ refined ” !
Then