Old Tavern Signs: An Excursion in the History of Hospitality

In mediæval times the signs were not only charming or pious decorations of the snug narrow streets, but they were also very useful and practical guides for the wayfarer through...

“Au-dessus de ma tête, Charles Quint, Joseph II ou Napoléon pendus à une vieillie potence en fer et faisant enseigne, grands empereurs qui ne sont plus bons qu’à achalander une...

Rome was to conquer the northern Germanic world once more, not with the sword as had been the case in the olden days of a pagan Rome, but with the cross and its exponent, the mo...

Good old Diderot, who to-day sits so peacefully in his armchair of bronze on the Boulevard Saint-Germain and observes with philosophical calm the restless stream of Parisian lif...

The heavy castle gates in mediæval times were gladly opened to the minstrels who came to charm with their art the banquets of the noble lords and ladies--troubadours and minstre...

Little William, already in the days when he went “with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like a snail unwillingly to school,” had ample leisure and opportunity to ga...

“La bourse du voyageur, cette bourse précieuse, contient tout pour lui, puisque la sainte hospitalité n’est plus là pour le reçevoir au seuil des maisons avec son doux sourire e...

We cannot resist the temptation to quote as an introduction the _ipsissima verba_ of England’s classical historian Macaulay on the evolution of public hospitality in his country...

“To house a genius is a privilege; How fine so e’er a gift thou givest him, He leaves a finer one behind for thee. The spot is hallowed where a good man treads.”

Like a prophetic star the sign seems to stand over the birth-house of many a poet. Or shall we not agree with Chateaubriand who saw in the eagle on the house in Bread Street, Lo...

There is a surprising parallelism between the fathers of these two greatest men of the eighteenth century. These fathers, whom narrow-minded critics usually call pedants, transm...

Carlyle once complained that the artists preferred to paint “Corregiosities,” creations of their own fancy, instead of representing the historic events of their own times. Only...