Women often assert that the receipt was not a good one, and that upon trial it proved a failure, when, on investigation, you will find that, from false economy, some of the ingredients were left out; or the relative proportions diminished in quantity—too much of the cheapest articles being put in, and not enough of the more costly. Or else, that sufficient time and pains were not bestowed on the mixing and preparing; or that the thing was not sufficiently cooked.
By-the-bye, remember that a receipt for cookery, is not to be called a recipe. The word recipe belongs to pharmacy, and is only used with reference to medical prescriptions. The cook uses receipts, the apothecary recipes.
Whatever article you may wish to borrow from an inmate of the same house, apply first to persons whose time is of comparatively small importance to them, before you disturb and interrupt a literary lady. Do not trouble her for the loan of umbrellas, over-shoes, hoods, calashes, &c., or send to her for small change.
We once lived in a house where coal-fires were scarce, and wood-fires plenty. Our own fire-arrangement was wood in a Franklin stove, and no other person in the house was the fortunate owner of a pair of bellows. Liking always to be comfortable, we had bought a pair for ourselves.
Ten times a day we were disturbed by a knock at the door, from a coloured girl who came “a-borrowing” this implement to revive the fire of some other room. She called it by a pleasing variety of names—running through all the vowels. Sometimes she wanted the bellowsas; sometimes the bellowses; or the bellowsis, the bellowsos, or the bellowsus. These frequent interruptions, with others that were similar, became a real grievance. We thought it would cost us less to present the bellows to the house, and buy another pair for ourselves. We did so—but very soon the first pair was somehow missing, and our own was again in requisition.
Since that winter we have burnt anthracite, and therefore have no bellowsas to lend.
CHAPTER XXI.
SUGGESTIONS TO INEXPERIENCED AUTHORS.
There is some economy and much convenience in buying your paper by the ream, (twenty quires,) having first tried a sample. The surface of the paper should be smooth, and somewhat glossy; particularly if you write with metallic pens. That which is soft and spongy, though a little lower in price, wears out the pen so fast that what is saved in paper is lost in pens; also, there is no possibility of writing on it with ease and expedition. You will find it best to use paper ruled in lines. If you write a large hand, take foolscap; if a small hand, use letter-paper size. But note-paper is too small, when you are writing for the press.
Before you commence your manuscript, take a quire, and prepare each sheet by splitting it all down the folded side, with a sharp paper-cutter, thus dividing it into half-sheets. You can do this better on a flat table than on the slope of a desk. Keep your left hand pressing down hard on the quire, while you are cutting it with your right.
The best paper-cutters are those of real ivory. A handle is of no advantage to them, but rather the contrary. They should be thin, plain, and perfectly straight, except being rounded off at the two ends. Ivory paper-knives of this form are generally used by the book-binders, an evidence that they are convenient and expeditious. Those of bone or horn are scarcely worth buying, though but half the price; the edges soon becoming blunt, and therefore useless. Wooden paper-knives are good for nothing. Paper-knives of mother of pearl, and other ornamental substances, are of little utility, being rarely sharp enough, (even when new,) and in a short time becoming quite dull. Also, they break very easily. Avoid cutting a sheet of paper, or the leaves of a book, with scissors; it is comparatively a slow and awkward process; and cannot, even with great care, be effected as smoothly and evenly as with a cutter of ivory.