| | 1 | Author: | Irving
Washington
1783-1859 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The beauties of Washington Irving, author of "The sketch-book," "Knickerbocker," "Crayon miscellany," &c  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | During a journey that I once made through the Nctherlands,
I had arrived one evening at the Pomme d' Or,
the principal inn of a small Flemish village. It was after
the hour of the table d'hote, so that I was obliged to make
a solitary supper from the reliques of its ampler board.
The weather was chilly; I was seated alone in one end
of a great gloomy dining-room, and my repast being over,
I had the prospect before me of a long dull evening, without
any visible means of enlivening it. I summoned
mine host, and requested something to read; he brought
me the whole literary stock of his household, a Dutch
family-bible, an almanack in the same language, and a
number of old Paris newspapers. As I sat dozing over
one of the latter, reading old news and stale criticisms,
my ear was now and then struck with bursts of laughter
which seemed to proceed from the kitchen. Every one
that has travelled on the continent must know how favourite
a resort the kitchen of a country inn is to the
middle and inferior order of travellers; particularly in
that equivocal kind of weather, when a fire becomes agreeable
towards evening. I threw aside the newspaper, and
explored my way to the kitchen, to take a peep at the
group that appeared to be so merry. It was composed
partly of travellers who had arrived some hours before in
a diligence, and partly of the usual attendants and hangers-on
of inns. They were seated round a great burnished
stove, that might have been mistaken for an altar, at
which they were worshipping. It was covered with
various kitchen vessels of resplendent brightness; among
which steamed and hissed a huge copper tea-kettle. A
large lamp threw a strong mass of light upon the group
bringing out many odd features in strong relief. Its
yellow rays partially illumined the spacious kitchen, dying
duskily away into remote corners; except where they
settled into mellow radiance on the broad side of a flitch of
bacon, or were reflected back from well-scoured utensils,
that gleamed from the midst of obscurity. A strapping
Flemish lass, with long golden pendants in her ears, and a
necklace with a golden heart suspended to it, was the presiding
priestess of the temple. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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