with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow.

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I never miss a chance for another book-mostly at this point I am booking it for older books-Not the shiny new ones, though they are good too. It's ALL the books I missed and should have read that I seek. Anything memoir-ish or biography-ish or auto- Perfection.

A recent Winner- LOVED ONES, PEN PORTRAITS BY DIANA MOSLEY. If you want a good portrait go to a good friend for the goods. Diana Mosley's pen sketches include her husband, Sir Oswald Mosley, Lytton Strachey and Carrington, Evelyn Waugh, Professor Derek Jackson, her sister Pamela's husband, Prince and Princess Clary, Lord Berners and Violet Hammersley.

 Mrs. Hammersley's portrait by Philip Wilson Steer in 1907 reflects the style of Gainsborough. She remembered the painter as having disliked the blue satin bows and 'Steer replaced them with white’: I sat to him all through the winter andspring and into the summer of 1907, and we had near a hundred sittings.These took place at 109 Cheyne Walk, and I sat on a sofa at the end ofhis charming drawing room … The sitting lasted about three hours and Ido not remember ever being bored for a moment. "
(Mrs. Hammersley quoted in MacColl, 1945)

Along with this cast, other players enter and exit with choice starring roles and bit parts.  Violet Hammersley was a sort of godmother to all the Mitford girls-being their mother's dearest friend.  Once a beauty and a wealthy one at that, Mrs. Hammersley never let that be cause for optimism!  After Cox's Bank failed Mrs. Hammersley's fortunes turned and she announced the news to the Mitford family in a note written on the back of a crumpled bill. According to Diana Mosley, her love of  the dramatic never abated- and with the lessening of her fortunes Mrs. Hammersley lived in "despair," but she continued to be a delight and the girls remained attached to her throughout their diverging lives. Some of the most charming anecdotes in the book come from this chapter.

Violet Hammersley was great friends with Somerset Maugham, Sybil Colefax and Osbert Sitwell. One of several homes included Sargent's old studio in Tite Street-where the great portraitist had painted Violet's sister in law-Mrs Hugh Hammersley in 1892.

Mrs. Ham, as she was called by the Mitford girls, was once overheard telling her dog- 'I worship your body.' The expression was carried on by Debo, the now dowager Duchess of Devonshire, applying it to anything she happened to like. Diana wrote: I once heard her say,

Oh! that Chintz! I worship its body.

Deborah Devonshire, above, in 1938, with her dog & her chintz, & below photographed by Derry Moore in 1985. in the Blue Drawing Room at Chatsworth with her dog & her chintz & her Sargent.

Sargent's painting of the Acheson Sisters-Ladies Alexandra, Mary and Theo Acheson, was likely commissioned by the grandmother of the girls, Louisa, Duchess of Devonshire, who was previously married to the Seventh Duke of Manchester (grandfather to the girls)

Louise von Alten - Duchess of Manchester, later the Eight Duchess of Devonshire-from the painting by Robert Thornburn

Dogs ! Chintz ! Portraits !  Sargents ! - & Loved Ones!
I worship your body!

there is a copy at High Valley books here

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