The Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson Constructed
from 1819 to 1821 by skilled carpenters and masons from the local area, the
original section of the Hermitage mansion was a brick Federal-style house. This design was a typical plantation dwelling
for aspiring gentleman farmers in the Upper South but was already beginning to
lose favor in more fashionable Eastern areas. The house contained eight rooms–four on each
floor–and two wide center halls. This
symmetrical center hall style plan held its popularity in the South for many
years. The first floor contained two
parlors, a dining room, and Andrew and Rachel Jackson’s bedroom. The upstairs held four bedrooms. The elegant house featured a basement summer
kitchen, nine fireplaces, an entrance fanlight, French wallpaper, and metal
gutters. Later, Jackson added a small
plain entrance portico. In 1831, while
Jackson was President, he undertook a major remodeling directed by architect
David Morrison. Morrison dramatically
renovated the mansion with flanking one-story wings, a two-story entrance
portico with ten Doric columns, a small rear portico, and copper gutters. The east wing contained a library and farm
office while a large dining room and pantry comprised the west wing. A new kitchen and smokehouse were also built
behind the 13-room mansion. Morrison’s remodeling gave the house a new
Classical appearance. Fire heavily
damaged the house in the fall of 1834. Under
the oversight of some of Jackson’s Nashville friends, builders Joseph Reiff and
William C. Hume remodeled the m ansion a second time. The entrance façade was transformed into a
fashionable Greek temple. Six two-story columns with modified Corinthian
capitals range across the front porch. Similar columns with Doric capitals support a
two-story rear porch. A coat of light tan paint on the front façade and sand
coating on the front porch columns and trim simulated the appearance of stone. Inside the house, the builders thriftily
re-used Federal-style woodwork, but moved it to the family bedrooms. In the public rooms, such as the parlors and
the best guest rooms, Greek Revival-style mantels and woodwork, taken from the
design pattern-book of New England architect Asher Benjamin presented an
up-to-date appearance. The highlight of
the interior architecture is the cantilevered elliptical center staircase,
which replaced the earlier “dog-leg” staircase, a straight flight of stairs
with two landings. http://www.thehermitage.com/mansion-grounds/mansion
Southampton Old Bowling Green, situated on the corner of Lower Canal Walk and
Platform Road, Southampton, England is the world's oldest surviving bowling
green having been first used in 1299. A unique occurrence called the
"Knighthood" competition is held annually when the members play in
top hats and frocked tails suits, the winner being allowed the title of
"sir", (in lower case). Those
who win are banned from future Knighthood competitions. The competition used to start on 1 August
but now starts on the third Wednesday of the month and is open to all members
of the club, except the knights. The game
is played "roving jack" style in that the jack is placed on a penny anywhere on the
green. Each player takes it in turns to
bowl his two bowls at the jack. Each
bowl when it comes to rest is measured and the distance from the jack is
recorded before the bowl is removed. If
a bowl moves the jack, the jack is placed back on the penny before it is
measured. If the penny it partially
covered by the bowl it is a toucher, if totally covered it is a lodger. After all the players have bowled the player
with the closest bowl is awarded one point. If he also has the second nearest he scores
two. The jack is then reset at a
different position and the game continues until somebody has scored seven
points. The winner is made a
"knight-of-the-green" and can never enter this competition again. It is a rarity for the knight to be declared
on the first day and the competition has been known to last ten days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southampton_Old_Bowling_Green
"Funiculì, Funiculà" is a famous Neapolitan song written by Italian journalist Peppino
Turco and set to music by Italian composer Luigi Denza
in 1880. It was composed to commemorate
the opening of the first funicular cable car on Mount
Vesuvius. The 1880 cable car was
later destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 1944. The song was sung for the first time in the
Quisisana Hotel in Castellammare di Stabia and met with huge
success. It was presented by Turco and
Denza at the Piedigrotta festival during the same year. Edward Oxenford, an English songwriter and
translator of libretti, published a version which became somewhat traditional
in English-speaking countries. Six years
after "Funiculì, Funiculà" was composed, German composer Richard
Strauss heard the song while on a tour of Italy. Thinking that it was a traditional Neapolitan
folk song, he later incorporated it into his Aus Italien
tone poem. Denza filed a lawsuit against
Strauss and eventually won. Strauss was
forced to pay him a royalty fee. Another who mistook "Funiculì,
Funiculà" for a traditional folk song was Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, who used it in his
1907 work, Neapolitanskaya pesenka (Neapolitan Song). Modernist composer Arnold
Schoenberg set a version for string quartet which was used in an episode of
the TV sitcom Seinfeld. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicul%C3%AC,_Funicul%C3%A0
Karst is a terrain
with distinctive landforms and hydrology created from the dissolution of
soluble rocks, principally limestone and dolomite. Karst terrain is characterized by springs,
caves, sinkholes, and a unique hydrogeology that results in aquifers that are
highly productive but extremely vulnerable to contamination. In the United States, about 40% of the
groundwater used for drinking comes from karst aquifers. Some karst areas in the United States are
famous, such as the springs of
Florida,Carlsbad
Caverns in New Mexico, andMammoth Cave in
Kentucky, but in fact about 20 percent of the land surface in the U.S. is
classified as karst. Other parts of the
world with large areas of karst include China, Europe, the Caribbean, and
Australia. Karst hydrogeology is typified by a network of
interconnected fissures, fractures and conduits emplaced in a relatively
low-permeability rock matrix. Most of
the groundwater flow and transport occurs through the network of openings,
while most of the groundwater storage occurs in the matrix. http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/karst/pages/whatiskarst
Britishisms: worth your wile, pleached alley, plus fours, head
over ears
Maid in Waiting, v. 7 in
The Forsyte Chronicles by John Galsworthy (1867-1933)
The Forsyte Chronicles
The Forsyte Saga [1906-21]
The Man of Property [1906]
Interlude: Indian Summer of a Forsyte (1918?) In Chancery [1920] Interlude:
Awakening [1920] To Let [1921]
On Forsyte ’Change [1930]
A Modern Comedy [1924-1928] The White Monkey [1924]
Interlude: A Silent Wooing
The Silver Spoon [1926]
Interlude: Passers By Swan Song [1928]
End of the Chapter [1931-1933]
Maid In Waiting [1931] Flowering Wilderness [1932]
Over the River [1933]
Read online at: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/galsworthy/john/index.html
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