Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery, Volume 2 |
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Common terms and phrases
admirable amongst amused beauty better blossoms blushes bonnet bright called castle Charles North charming child Cleora clever colour Comus coppice copse cottage creature cricket dear delicate delightful dress elegant English Eurydice Evelyn eyes face fair father favourite flowers fortune-teller French garden gentle gipsy girl godfather green Gretna Green greyhound habits half hand happy head honour humour husband Jack Hatch knew lamb laugh lived Loddon river London look Lucy Lynx Madame maid manner marriage Mary Miss morning neighbours ness never nosegay parish party passed person play pleasant poor pretty quackery racter rich Robert Heron rose round Saladin Sally scolding seemed side smiling sort sure sweet talk tall thing Thomas Thomas Lamb thought tion trees turned twenty Urania village voice walk whilst whole wife wind woman wood-sorrel word youth Zenobie
Popular passages
Page 107 - PERSOUN of a toun ; But riche he was of holy thought and werk. He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche ; His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche.
Page 283 - Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear The sightless Milton, with his hair Around his placid temples curled ; And Shakspeare at his side — a freight, If clay could think and mind were weight, For him who bore the world ! Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy ; The wages of thy travel, joy ! 2.
Page 21 - Wondrous beautiful her face ; But so weak and small her wit That she to govern was unfit, And so Susanna took her place. But when Isabella came, Armed with a resistless flame And th...
Page 107 - Of his offring, and eke of his substance. He coude in litel thing have suffisance. Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder, But he ne...
Page 108 - Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf. This noble ensample to his shepe he yaf, That first he wrought, and afterward he taught.
Page 271 - ... was known to court the tall nursemaid at the mill — she got a shilling from Ned, simply by assuring him that his wife should have the longest coffin that ever was made in our wheelwright's shop. A most tempting prediction! ingeniously combining the prospect of winning and of surviving the lady of his heart — a promise equally adapted to the hot and cold fits of that ague called love ; lightening the fetters of wedlock ; uniting in a breath the bridegroom and the widower. Ned was the best...
Page 108 - But it were any persone obstinat, What so he were of highe, or low estat, Him wolde he snibben sharply for the nones.
Page 38 - Their relative situations had probably something to do with it, and yet it was wonderful that two such excellent persons should so thoroughly detest each other. Miss R.'s aversion was of the cold, phlegmatic, contemptuous, provoking sort; she kept aloof, and said nothing. Madame's was acute, fiery, and loquacious ; she not only hated Miss R., but hated for her sake knowledge, and literature, and wit, and, above all, poetry, which she denounced as something fatal and contagious, like the plague.
Page 270 - I soon found to be groundless. The old gipsy was a celebrated fortune-teller, and the post having been so long vacant, she could not have brought her talents to a better market. The whole village rang with the predictions of this modern Cassandra — unlike her Trojan predecessor, inasmuch as her prophecies were never of evil. I myself could not help admiring...
Page 104 - ... corses, the slain of to-day ! The grove was like a field of battle. The young lads who were stripping the bark, the very children who were picking up the chips, seemed awed and silent, as if conscious that death was around them. The nightingales sang faintly and interruptedly — a few low frightened notes like a requiem. Ah ! here we are at the very scene of murder...