#one dirausten

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“It is the most famous joke! I have got the latest volume of Miss Swift’s new novel, and I’ll swear Harry is in it!”

Liam rolled his eyes and said he was sure of it, but Zayn said with interest, “Oh, do you think so? Was wondering myself. The fellow who overturns the chariot? Sir Miles?”

“Of course!” Louis said triumphantly. “Miles Parry, you perceive—an unsubtle rhyme. It is certainly Harry. I never laughed so hard in my life. Liam, only listen. This bit—” 

“…Juliet was fortunate beyond ladies of larger means and greater beauty: for it was she, among all the guests, whom the Queen had seated next to Sir Miles Parry. This knight was tall, young, of an uncommonly handsome person, with dark curling locks, and his features were expressive and finely formed: to which natural gifts he joined the possession of such engaging manners, that he seemed to pay to every one to whom he spoke, a deep and particular attention.

Sir Miles, although Juliet did not know it, was of a well-meaning but an uncertain character; for the sweet pliability of his disposition led him, to wish to please rather than to do what, though less amiable, might have been more correct. Furthermore his attention—his merry raillery,—his entrancing smile,—had a guileless tenderness and charm which a wiser lady than Juliet would have known to beware. For truly, Reader, even an innocent young girl may know enough to be upon her guard, against the weary & practiced attentions of a Rake: therefore, being guarded, she need not fear him: but a gentleman is most dangerous, whose erratic affections he himself believes to be sincere.

Such a one was Sir Miles. But she, alas!—Simple creature!—knew no better than to be dazzled by him, and by the glow in his emerald orbs, as luminous as sunlight upon the warm Spanish seas, over which Juliet’s imaginary ship had sailed in her childhood imaginings.**

“'Her childhood imaginings!'” Louis repeated, with disgusted relish. “'Emerald orbs!' My God, what stuff.”

“Well, I think it’s quite good,” said Mr. Styles, who had listened placidly to this uncomplimentary portrait. “I wrote a few poems about her myself,” he added, with a reminiscent air: receiving which intelligence, Lord Tomlinson gave vent to his feelings by a spell of exaggeratedly violent retching.

    **The passage is from Miss Swift’s Out from the Green-Wood, or, Juliet at Two-and-Twenty. The merits of Miss Swift’s prose have been much argued, and among literary gentlemen she is given considerably less than her due; but I believe no discerning reader can fail to appreciate her eye for both the resonant and the satirical.

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i can't do this

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guys, i’m gonna be real with you, every spare second that i have spent not doing my adult job or making Pop Taynads has been devoted to thinking about ONE DIRAUSTEN REGENCY ZAYN with devran taskesan’s hair

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I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

❦ One Dirausten: the BBC miniseries ❦ 

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 Mr. Malik, in his private apartments. (full size).

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Louis Tomlinson, Viscount Doncaster, and H. E. Styles, ca. 1815 Thomas Phillips (English, 1770-1845) Watercolor on ivory Oval, 13cm x 9cm

These two complementary portraits show Phillips at the height of his evocative mastery, if not at his most technically proficient. Styles, a minor composer more notorious in his time for his private life than for his craft, commissioned the miniatures for his friend and patron Lord Doncaster in late 1814. In private correspondence Phillips referred to the project as "Mischief and Mildness," almost certainly an allusion to the temperaments of his subjects. Of their sessions together he wrote to his friend David Wilkie:

...The Viscount would not cease in his flow of Activity, for even a moment, and I was obliged to Cajole him with Sweetmeats, and with pleas to BE STILL, as I do with my Infant subjects: but fortunately Mr. Styles, who is his Intimate, is able to placate him in these Moods, by Teasing him and, by means mysterious, convincing him not to Stir, for minutes at a time, Mirabile Dictu! I must ensure that Mr. Styles attends me in all future sittings, else I fear I shall never have his Lordship's likeness; a Blur of Motion might I have for a Model, and perhaps the echo of a Witchy Cackle as it vanishes, and nothing more.

The portraits were kept at Doncaster House until its sale out of the family in 1982. They were displayed, before the house's renovation in the early 1950s, in the master bedroom rather than the gallery -- suggesting that the Viscount, if a difficult sitter, was at least an appreciative client.

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I have found no satisfactory reason why my great-uncle -- by all accounts a modest and a frugal man -- should have gone to the expense of commissioning another self-portrait, when one had already been made, in his Army days, for the family's use (see Fig. 16, inset). This second portrait (Fig. 17) is a curious artifact, with some properties I would call very nearly romantic, particularly in the expression of the face. The artist is not known. I have my own speculations; lacking sufficient evidential ground, however, I shall not here indulge them.

An History of the Wolverhampton Paynes, by J. M. Payne, Esq. (McClellan & Sons, Manchester, 1922).