Life's Tapestry Author:Life General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1873 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER IV. " At last hath woke the day of glory !" I Suppose almost every one has some Hcandalous relations, and my Vivians are no exception to the rule; indeed, I think they are possessed of more than their fair share of them. Vivian Vivian himself, you must own, is not exactly a model of virtue, but they have some much more objectionable in every point of view than he; amongst them, all, however, there is not one held in such dread as Aunt Lucretia, Lucia Vivian's namesake. A visit from her is the treadmill; and a visit to her, purgatory. A letter from her lies on the breakfast-table this thirty-first of May, for it is Claude's birthday, and she alwaysremembers birthdays, though not for the sake of saying anything pleasant. Far would that be from her. The Vivians are seated at the depressing morning meal. I think Protestantism and a compulsory appearance at the family breakfast-table, are the two chief points of difference between England and the Continental nations; and whatever you may think of the former, you must own the latter is not to the advantage of "our beloved country." Away from town, when hunting, shooting, or other morning sports are constantly on the carpet, to meet at breakfast may be all very well, but in London it is a mistake. It is most trying to many people to be obliged to join in conversation soon after rising, while the heaviness of slumber clings round them still; and to have to sit, perhaps with ghastly faces opposite the light, at an unearthly hour, to be stared at. The Vivians bear the ordeal as well as any one could, and seem tolerably wide awake. " I think that leg ...« less