I think, in the absence of my brain activity, you might like to know a little more of the original Iris - who is with us in spirit. Here is a description of her first appearance to one of her greatest admirers.


"Now, I had no sooner cast my hat on the bed than the bell rang. It was one of those infernal things you pull at, so that they may go on clanging for ever, and as it clanged I wondered, I am afraid ungraciously, who it could be.... I could, however, always order my privacy without seeming too unfriendly by looking down from my bedroom window..(from which)... I had a clear prospect of our lane. Of pests, however, there was no sign; nor of cats, nor of men, nor of any low and usual thing; only, under the lamp at the Sheep Street end.. a long, low, yellow car which shone like a battle chariot. It was empty.

... I am one of those who are affected by motor cars; their lines thrill me, the harmony of their colour touches me, a gallant device wins my earnest admiration so that, walking along Piccadilly, I will distress my mind by being a partisan of this one, a despiser of that one. Nor am I to be won by any cheap thing, no matter how brave-seeming it may be to the eye ...but I am only to be won by the simple lines, the severe and menacing aspect, of the aces among motor-cars... This car charmed the eye. Like a huge yellow insect that had dropped to earth from a butterfly civilisation, this car, gallant and suave, rested in the lowly silence of the Shepherd's Market night. Open as a yacht, it wore a great shining bonnet, and flying over the crest of this great bonnet, as though in proud flight over the heads of scores of phantom horses, was that silver stork by which the gentle may be pleased to know that they have just escaped death beneath the wheels of a Hispano-Suiza car...

Downwards ... I looked, and there was a green hat before my door. The light from the one lamp in Sheep Street fell about it, and that was how I saw that it was a green hat, of a sort of felt, and bravely worn; being, no doubt, one of those that women who have many hats affect 'pour le sport'.

'Do you know if Mr. March is in?', asked the voice of the green hat. But I could not see her face for the shadow of the brim, for it was a piratical brim, such as might very possibly defy the burning suns of El Dorado."
- posted by Iris @ 12/11/2003 12:28:00 AM comment