Dream Life: A Fable of the SeasonsScribner, 1867 - 271 pages |
Contents
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Common terms and phrases
admiration affection Aunt Tabithy autumn better Bidlow's bless boyhood boyish broken calm catch cham Charlie cherished Clarence cloister clouds comes dark dear Madge dreams drop earnest fancy father fear feel fellow float flowers fond Frank garret gentle girl glow gone grace gray Greek poetry grief grow half hand heart Heaven hope Jenny joyous kind Laura leans light linger little Nelly live Livy London Bridge look manhood manliness marriage memory Miss Dalton morning mother Nelly's ness never night once passion pleasant poor prayer pride proud quickened quiet seems shadow sigh sleep smile soul spirit spring steal story stout strong summer Sunnyside sweet sycamores sympathy talk tall tears tell tenderness Thaddeus of Warsaw thing thought tone trees tremble tremulous uncon vanity wake WASHINGTON IRVING watch weakness wear wife wonder Xenophon yearning young youth
Popular passages
Page 22 - ... tent in the edge of the forest ; the dandelions lie along the hillocks, like stars in a sky of green ; and the wild cherry, growing in all the hedge-rows, without other culture than God's, lifts up to Him thankfully its tremulous white fingers. Amid all this come the rich rains of spring. The affections of a boy grow up with tears to water them ; and the year blooms with showers. But the clouds hover over an April sky timidly, like shadows upon innocence. The showers come gently, and drop daintily...
Page 20 - THE budding and blooming of spring seem to belong properly to the opening of the months. It is the season of the quickest expansion, of the warmest blood, of the readiest growth; it is the boy-age of the year. The birds sing in chorus in the spring — just as children prattle; the brooks run full — like the overflow of young hearts; the showers drop easily — as young tears flow; and the whole sky is as capricious as the mind of a boy.
Page 98 - Here and there a lark, scared from his feeding-place in the grass, soars up, bubbling forth his melody in globules of silvery sound, and settles upon some tall tree, and waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying twigs. I hear, too, a quail piping from the meadow fence, and another trilling his answering whistle from the hills. Nearer by...
Page 27 - Yet, after all, you think the old fellow must have had a capital time with a whole island to himself; and you think you would like such a time yourself, if only Nelly and Charlie could be there with you. But this thought does not come till afterward; for the time you are nothing but Crusoe ; you are living in his cave with Poll the parrot, and are looking out for your goats and man Friday. You dream what a nice thing it would be for you to slip away some pleasant morning, — not to York, as young...
Page 24 - IT is an old garret with big, brown rafters ; and the boards between are stained darkly with the rainstorms of fifty years. And as the sportive April shower quickens its flood, it seems as if its torrents would come dashing through the shingles, upon you, and upon your play. But it will not ; for you know that the old roof is strong ; and that it has kept you, and all that love you, for long years from the rain, and from the cold : you know that the hardest storms of winter will only make a little...
Page 21 - Finally the oaks step into the opening quadrille of spring, with grayish tufts of a modest verdure, which by-and-by will be long and glossy leaves. The dog-wood pitches his broad, white tent in the edge of the forest ; the dandelions lie along the hillocks, like stars in a sky of green ; and the wild cherry, growing in all the hedge-rows, without other culture than God's, lifts up to Him thankfully its tremulous white fingers. Amid all this come the rich rains of spring. The affections of a boy grow...
Page 177 - Do not proud flowers blossom ; — the golden rod, the orchis, the dahlia, and the bloody cardinal of the swamplands ? The fruits too are golden, hanging heavy from the tasked trees. The fields of maize show weeping spindles, and broad rustling leaves, and ears, half glowing with the crowded corn ; the September wind whistles over their thick-set ranks, with whispers of plenty. The staggering stalks of the buck-wheat grow red with ripeness ; and tip their tops with clustering, tri-cornered kernels.
Page 164 - ... which your tears only can tell. She is good; her hopes live where the angels live. Her kindness and gentleness are sweetly tempered with that meekness and forbearance which are born of Faith. Trust comes into her heart as rivers come to the sea. And in the dark hours...
Page 196 - You ramble, with a little kindling of old desires and memories, over the hillsides that once bounded your boyish vision. Here, you netted the wild rabbits, as they came out at dusk, to feed ; there, upon that tall chestnut, you cruelly maimed your first captive squirrel. The old maples are even now scarred with the rude cuts you gave them, in sappy March. You sit down upon some height, overlooking the valley where you were born ; you trace the faint, silvery line of river ; you detect by the leaning...
Page 214 - Madge's little gaiters outside the chamber-door at night. Your home, when it is entered, is just what it should be — quiet, small, — with everything she wishes, and nothing more than she wishes. The sun strikes it in the happiest possible way; the piano is the sweetest-toned in the world; the library is stocked to a charm ; and Madge, that blessed wife, is there — adorning and giving life to it all.