Children of the olden days

I quite like looking inside and outside old historic sites. One of the things I particularly like looking at when I am inside an historic house is the old tapestry samplers. Once upon a time I did cross-stitch. These days I don’t have the patience for counting tiny squares of thread.

For the uninitiated, a “sampler” is an example of various stitches, which usually contains all the letters of the alphabet and all the numbers, in some form of design, to show that you could stitch your letters and numbers and place them nicely amidst a few flower pots and animals or the like.

But it’s the little verses stitched into some of these old tapestries that give a curious glimpse into life gone by, especially those in the little tapestries you find in children’s nurseries. There may be a flaw in that statement as I realise that there may have been a code that applied to tapestry verses that didn’t necessarily reflect the rest of life. Nevertheless, I doubt you’d find children of today stitching the same verses, especially not at the same ages. Here is one I copied down from the nursery of Narrynnya, a historic house in Battery Point, Hobart:

Cast off all needless and distrustful care

A little is enough too much a snare

Our journey from our cradle to our grave

Cannot be long nor large provision crave

1834 Caroline Prior

Aged 9 years

I don’t know whether Caroline Prior composed that herself, or was instructed by a pious governess, but if she had to sit down and stitch it no doubt she came to know it well!

I must be getting old because something about old tapestry samplers hanging in old nurseries, especially above exquisite tiny old doll's houses, makes me lament the way the world has changed.