Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery, Volume 1

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Geo. B. Whitaker, 1828 - English essays
 

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Page 142 - Into a pretty anger, that a bird, Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes, Should vie with him for mastery, whose study Had busied many hours to perfect practice ; To end the controversy, in a rapture Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly So many voluntaries, and so quick That there was curiosity and cunning, Concord in discord, lines of differing method Meeting in one full centre of delight.
Page 143 - Alas, poor creature ! I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it ; Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, Shall never more betray a harmless peace To an untimely end :" and in that sorrow, As he was pashing* it against a tree, I suddenly stept in.
Page 138 - And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo ; Cuckoo, cuckoo...
Page 259 - The common, overgrown with fern, and rough With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd, And dang'rous to the touch, has yet its bloom, And decks itself with ornaments of gold...
Page 161 - But they were beaten sulky, and would not move — to my great disappointment; I wanted to prolong the pleasure of success. What a glorious sensation it is to be for five hours together winning — winning — winning! always feeling what a whistplayer feels when he takes up four honours, seven trumps ! Who would think that a little bit of leather, and two pieces of wood, had such a delightful and delighting power?
Page 31 - Come, May !' and up she springs as light as a bird. The road is gay now; carts and postchaises, and girls in red cloaks, and, afar off, looking almost like a toy, the coach. It meets us fast and soon. How much happier the walkers look than the riders — especially the frost-bitten gentleman, and the shivering lady with the invisible face, sole passengers of that commodious machine!
Page 93 - She had no French either, not a word ; no Italian ; but then her English was racy, unhackneyed, proper to the thought to a degree that only original thinking could give. She had not much reading, except of the Bible and Shakspeare, and Richardson's novels, in which she was learned ; but then her powers of observation were sharpened and quickened, in a very unusual degree, by the leisure and opportunity afforded for their devclopement, at a time of life when they are most acute.
Page 15 - ... then the village street, peeping through the trees, whose clustering tops hide all but the chimneys, and various roofs of the houses, and here and there some angle of a wall: farther on, the elegant town of B , with its fine old church towers and spires; the whole view shut in by a range of chalky hills; and over every part of the picture, trees so profusely scattered, that it appears like a woodland scene, with glades and villages intermixed.
Page 95 - ... of her knowledge of plants and birds may certainly have arisen from her delight in these boyish amusements. And which of us has not found that the strongest, the healthiest, and most flourishing acquirement has arisen from pleasure or accident ; has been in a manner self-sown, like an oak of the forest? — Oh she was a sad romp ; as skittish as a wild colt, as uncertain as a butterfly, as uncatchable as a swallow ! But her great personal beauty, the charm, grace and lightness of her movements,...
Page 175 - Most of all did he, braced into a gipsy-like defiance of wet and cold, grumble at the warmth and dryness of his apartment. He used to foretell that it would kill him, and assuredly it did so.

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