Domestic pleasures | Page 6

free from weeds. Vast tracts of hilly ground are planted with it. It is not allowed to grow very tall, for the convenience of the more readily collecting its leaves, which is done first in spring, and twice afterwards in the course of the summer. Its long and tender branches spring up almost from the root, without any intervening naked trunk. It is bushy, like a rose tree, and the blossom bears some resemblance to that flower.
_Emily._ There is a very great difference in the flavour of tea. Does that depend upon the manner of drying it?
_Mr. B._ In some degree it does; but its quality is materially affected by the soil in which it grows, and by the age of the leaves when plucked from the tree. The largest and oldest leaves are least esteemed, and are generally sold to the lowest of the people, with very little previous preparation. The younger ones, on the contrary, undergo great care and much attention, before they are delivered to the purchaser. Every leaf passes through the fingers of a female, who rolls it up almost to the form it assumed before it was expanded by growth. It is afterwards placed upon very thin plates of earthen-ware, or iron, and exposed to the heat of a charcoal fire, which draws all the moisture from the leaves, and renders them dry and crisp.
_Emily._ I have heard that green tea is dried on copper, which gives it its peculiar taste and colour, and renders it less wholesome than black tea.
_Mr. B._ This is, I believe, a mistake: the chief use of copper, in China, is for coinage. Scarcely any utensil is made of that metal, and the Chinese themselves confidently deny the use of copper plates for this purpose. The colour and flavour of green tea is thought to be derived from the early period at which the leaves are plucked, and which, like unripe fruit, are generally green and acrid.
Emily thanked her father for the account he had given her, and all the children gratefully felt the value of their kind parents, who were ever willing to devote their time and attention to the improvement of their beloved family.
_Mr. B._ I hope you are all prepared to give me a further account of Romulus, after tea.
All. We hope so, papa.
Ferdinand. May I first tell you a very curious account of a little dwarf, which I read today?
_Mr. B._ By all means, my boy.
Ferdinand. It is now seventy-four years since he was born, at a village in France. He was a very little creature indeed, as you will suppose, when I tell you he only weighed a pound and a quarter. When he was baptized, they handed him to the clergyman on a plate, and, for a long time, he used to sleep in a slipper. He could not walk alone till he was two years old, and then his shoes were only an inch and a half long. At six years old he was fifteen inches high. Notwithstanding he was so very small, he was well-made and extremely handsome, but he had not much sense. The king of Poland sent for him to his court, called him baby, and kept him in his palace. They tried to teach him dancing and music, but he could not learn. He was never more than twenty-nine inches tall. By the time he was sixteen he began to grow infirm, like an old man. From being very beautiful, the poor little creature became quite deformed. At twenty he was extremely feeble and decrepid, and two years after, he died.
_Mr. B._ Poor little creature: such objects are much to be pitied. There are persons who take pleasure in seeing them; but I must confess, there is something to me extremely unnatural, in such an exposure of our unhappy fellow-creatures.
Edward. Did not Peter the Great, on some occasion, assemble a vast number together?
_Mr. B._ He did; and I rather think Emily can give you an account of it.
Emily. It was in the year 1710, that a marriage between two dwarfs was celebrated at the Russian court. The preparations for this wedding were very grand, and executed in a style of barbarous ridicule. Peter ordered that all the dwarfs, both men and women, within two hundred miles, should repair to the capital, and insisted that they should be present at the ceremony. Some of them were unwilling to comply with this order, knowing that the object was to turn them into ridicule; but he soon obliged them to obey, and, as a punishment for their reluctance, made them wait on the others. There were seventy assembled, besides the bride and bridegroom, who were richly adorned in the extreme of fashion. Everything was suitably provided for the little company; a low