from The First Four Years, part 4, A Year of Grace (Laura Ingalls Wilder)

Manly and Peter were putting up hay on some land two miles away a week later.  Laura started the fire for supper in the kitchen stove.  The summer fuel was old, tough, long, slough hay, and Manly had brought an armful into the kitchen and put it down near the stove.

After lighting the fire and putting the tea kettle on, Laura went back into the other part of the house, shutting the kitchen door.

When she opened it again, a few minutes later, the whole inside of the kitchen was ablaze: the ceiling, the hay, and the floor underneath and wall behind.

As usual, a strong wind was blowing from the south, and by the time the neighbours arrived to help, the whole house was in flames.

Manly and Peter had seen the fire and come on the run with the team and the load of hay.

Laura had thrown one bucket of water on the fire in the hay, and then, knowing she was not strong enough to work the pump for more water, taking the little deed-box from the bedroom and Rose by the hand, she ran out and dropped on the ground in the little half-circle drive before the house.  Burying her face on her kneees she screamed and sobbed, saying over and over, 'Oh, what will Manly say to me?'  And there Manly found her and Rose, just as the house roof was falling in.

The neighbours had done what they could but the fire was so fierce that they were unable to go into the house.

Mr Sheldon had gone in through the pantry window and thrown all the dishes out through it towards the trunk of the little cottonwood tree, so the silver wedding knives and forks and spoons rolled up in their wrappers had survived.  Nothing else had been saved from the fire except the deed-box, a few work clothes, three sauce dishes from the first Christmas, and the oval glass bread plate around the margin of which were the words, 'Give us this day our daily bread'.

And the young cottonwood stood by the open cellar hole, scorched and blackened and dead.

After the fire Laura and Rose stayed at her Pa's for a few days.  The top of Laura's head had been blistered from the fire and something was wrong with her eyes.  The doctor said the heat had injured the nerves and so she rested for a little at her old home, but at the end of the week Manly came for her.

Mr Sheldon needed a housekeeper and gave Laura and Manly houseroom and use of his furniture in return for board for himself and his brother.  Now Laura was so busy she had no time for worry, caring for her family of three men, Peter, and Rose, through the rest of the haying and while Manly and Peter built a long shanty, three rooms in a row, near the ruins of their house.  It was built of only one thickness of boards and tar-papered on the outside, but it was built tightly, and being new, it was very snug and quite warm.

September nights were growing cool when the new house was ready and moved into.  The twenty-fifth of August had passed unnoticed and the year of grace was ended.

from An Enemy at Green Knowe (Lucy M. Boston)

The entrance hall was delightfully enclosing and reassuring, full as always of flowers and birds' nests, the lights relayed from mirror to mirror all down its length, and all the scatter of happy living - secateurs, baskets, books, letters and anything-to-hand lying on the tables.  The coloured stairs led up invitingly, but to get to the attic you had to pass through the Knights' Hall, which, if it had been alone for some hours, had a habit of slipping back to its own century.  However much you loved it, Tolly thought, it always needed a little resolution to break away into its privacy at night.

'You didn't tell us anything about the witchball,' he reminded Mrs Oldknow, to postpone the moment.  'May we see it, please?'

The witchball was hanging from the middle beam of the room nearest the front door.  It was made of looking-glass and had a diameter of about eighteen inches.  The glass was old and the silvering was old.  It did not glitter like modern glass, but reflected in an almost velvety way.  Being round, what it reflected was a spherical room, something difficult to look at because impossible to imagine.  There were no straight lines at all, no right angles.  Floor, ceiling, doors, windows, tables and chairs all curved softly around its shape.  Ping and Tolly, standing underneath looking up at it, appeared to be diving out of it face first, their bodies foreshortened and tapering, like tadpoles.

'You see,' said Mrs Oldknow, 'it reflects everything, even what is behind it, though that for some reason is upside down, which is supposed to be how our eyes really see things.'

'What is it used for, Granny?'

'Is it for seeing the future?'

'It looks as though it should be.  You could easily see strange things in a spherical mirror-room where even ordinary things look so queer.  Something could be there for quite a long time before you noticed it.  Besides, it's always easier to see visions in a glass than in reality.  But I believe it was supposed to keep away demons.  I don't know why.  Perhaps because if anyone had an attendant demon and came anywhere near the witchball they would risk the demon being seen.  You must admit it looks magic enough for anything.'

'You would have to learn how to look into it,' said Tolly sensibly.  'It is difficult to recognize things in it, especially upside down.'

'A demon, if there was one,' said Ping, 'wouldn't like being reflected, even if no one saw.  It might steal some of his power.'

'I'm sure that's right, Ping,' said the old lady.  'Unlike ghosts who want to be seen and use looking-glasses to do it.'

'I suppose that is why you have so many looking-glasses in the hall,'  said Tolly.  'I like the house-ghosts too.  But I think I would be happier tonight if the witchball was hanging in our bedroom.  May we take it up?  I don't want any of Dr Vogel's companions clutching at me.'

Mrs Oldknow laughed.  'Don't tell me you have sold your soul so young!  I am counting on you to be one of the stalwart guardians of the place.  You should be clutching demons by the tail, not they you.'

'Green Knowe doesn't need guardians,' said Tolly, showing in his face how proud he was of it.  'It can't have any enemies.'

'It has enemies and it needs guarding all the time,' said the old lady.  'In spite of all the Preservation Societies it wouldn't be there another five years if we stopped watching and guarding it.  The very fact that it has lasted so long makes some people impatient.  Time it went, they say, without further argument.  The fact that it is different from anywhere else, with memories and standards of its own, makes quite a lot of people very angry indeed.  Things have no right to be different.  Everything should be alike.  Over and above all the rest, it seems to me to have something I can't put a name to, which always has had enemies.  Lift the witchball down, Tolly.  We'll take it up to the attic.  It is wasted in my workroom.  It really is a beauty.'

They carried it carefully upstairs and hung it from a beam.  It was a great addition.  It reflected back Ping and Tolly in their beds, though even when they sat up and waved their arms it was difficult to find themselves in it.  One is not used to seeing one's self feet upwards.

from How to Run Your Home without Help, chapter XIX, Entertaining with Enjoyment (Kay Smallshaw)

'Having friends in' or 'throwing a party' according to your vocabulary and the kind of hospitality you like to offer, can be one of the pleasanter things in life.  It can also be disappointingly hard work.  No one really enjoys being entertained when the preparation has obviously tired out the hostess in advance.  Yet the welcome seems to lack some warmth when no effort has been made to make the occasion something a little out of the ordinary.  Single-handed, you mustn't be too ambitious, although very naturally you want your guests to feel that visiting you is a delightful event in every way.

The kind of hospitality you offer will depend upon your own temperament, as well as your pocket.  If you're gregarious you'll like to have plenty of visitors, even if it means that there can't be very much in the way of refreshments.  On the other hand, you may get more satisfaction from inviting one or two friends to tea, or to a little dinner-party every so often, knowing that, in a simple way, everything is perfect.  So set your own style; and choose your guests to match.  Then if you plan carefully, everyone, host and hostess included, should have a good time.

But whatever the usual programme, you'll want to show, once or twice at least, what you can do in the way of a sit-down evening meal.  In-laws will like to see the new home, and you want to exhibit your skill as both hostess and cook.  Combining these two rôles successfully is quite a test, but if your husband says afterwards: 'You did wonderfully', everything will have been worthwhile.

from Pale Fire, Canto Three (Vladimir Nabokov)

And yet
It missed the gist of the whole thing; it missed
What mostly interests the preterist;
For we die every day; oblivion thrives
Not on dry thighbones but on blood-ripe lives,
And our best yesterdays are now foul piles
Of crumpled names, phone numbers and foxed files.
I'm ready to become a floweret
Or a fat fly, but never, to forget.
And I'll turn down eternity unless
The melancholy and the tenderness
Of mortal life; the passion and the pain;
The claret taillight of that dwindling plane
Off Hesperus; your gesture of dismay
On running out of cigarettes; the way
You smile at dogs; the trail of silver slime
Snails leave on flagstones; this good ink, this rhyme,
This index card, this slender rubber band
Which always forms, when dropped, an ampersand,
Are found in Heaven by the newlydead
Stored in its strongholds through the years.

from The Old Wives' Tale, book two, Constance, chapter 2, Christmas and the Future (Arnold Bennett)

All these changes in six years! The almanacs were in the right of it. But nothing had happened to her. Gradually she had obtained a sure ascendency over her mother, yet without seeking it, merely as the outcome of time's influences on her and on her mother respectively. Gradually she had gained skill and use in the management of her household and of her share of the shop, so that these machines ran smoothly and effectively and a sudden contretemps no longer frightened her. Gradually she had constructed a chart of Samuel's individuality, with the submerged rocks and perilous currents all carefully marked, so that she could now voyage unalarmed in those seas. But nothing happened. Unless their visits to Buxton could be called happenings! Decidedly the visit to Buxton was the one little hill that rose out of the level plain of the year. They had formed the annual habit of going to Buxton for ten days. They had a way of saying: 'Yes, we always go to Buxton. We went there for our honeymoon, you know.' They had become confirmed Buxtonites, with views concerning St. Anne's Terrace, the Broad Walk and Peel's Cavern. They could not dream of deserting their Buxton. It was the sole possible resort. Was it not the highest town in England? Well, then! They always stayed at the same lodgings, and grew to be special favourites of the landlady, who whispered of them to all her other guests as having come to her house for their honeymoon, and as never missing a year, and as being most respectable, superior people in quite a large way of business. Each year they walked out of Buxton station behind their luggage on a truck, full of joy and pride because they knew all the landmarks, and the lie of all the streets, and which were the best shops.

from True at First Light (Ernest Hemingway)

'Everybody was so serious,' Miss Mary said. 'I never saw all of you joke people get so serious.'

'Honey, it would have been awful if I had had to kill her. And I was worried about you.'

'Everybody so serious,' she said. 'And everybody holding on to my arm. I knew how to get back to the car. Nobody had to hold on to my arm.'

--

The day after a heavy rain is a splendid day for the propagation of religion while the time of the rain itself seems to turn men's minds from the beauty of their faith. All rain had stopped now and I was sitting by the fire drinking tea and looking out over the sodden country. Miss Mary was still sleeping soundly because there was no sun to wake her. Mwindi came to the table by the fire with a fresh pot of hot tea and poured me a cup.

'Plenty rain,' he said. 'Now finished.'

'Mwindi,' I said. 'You know what the Mahdi said. "We see plainly in the laws of nature that rain comes down from the heavens in the time of need. The greenness and verdure of the earth depend upon heavenly rain. If it ceases for a time the water in the upper strata of the earth gradually dries up. Thus we see that there is an attraction between the heavenly and the earthly waters. Revelation stands in the same relation to human reason as heavenly water does to the earthly water."'

'Too much rain for campi. Plenty good for Shamba,' Mwindi announced.

'"As with the cessation of heavenly water earthly water begins gradually to dry up; so also is the case of the human reason which without the heavenly revelation loses its purity and strength."'

'How I know that is Mahdi?' Mwindi said.

'Ask Charo.'

Mwindi grunted. He knew Charo was very devout but not a theologian.

--

Miss Mary was writing a great poem about Africa but the trouble was that she made it up in her head sometimes and forgot to write it down and then it would be gone like dreams. She wrote some of it down but she would not show it to anybody. We all had great faith in her poem about Africa and I still have but I would like it better if she would actually write it. We were all reading the Georgics then in the C. Day Lewis translation. We had two copies but they were always being lost or mislaid and I have never known a book to be more mis-layable. The only fault I could ever find with the Mantovan was that he made all normally intelligent people feel as though they too could write great poetry. Dante only made crazy people feel they could write great poetry. That was not true of course but then almost nothing was true and especially not in Africa. In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable.

--

That night Mary said she was very tired and she went to sleep in her own bed. I lay awake for a while and then went out to sit by the fire. In the chair watching the fire and thinking of Pop and how sad it was he was not immortal and how happy I was that he had been able to be with us so much and that we had been lucky to have three or four things together that were like the old days along with just the happiness of being together and talking and joking, I went to sleep.

The Return of Odysseus (George Bilgere)

When Odysseus finally does get home
he is understandably upset about the suitors,
who have been mooching off his wife for twenty years,
drinking his wine, eating his mutton, etc.

In a similar situation today he would seek legal counsel.
But those were different times. With the help
of his son Telemachus he slaughters roughly
one hundred and ten suitors
and quite a number of young ladies,
although in view of their behavior
I use the term loosely. Rivers of blood
course across the palace floor.

I too have come home in a bad mood.
Yesterday, for instance, after the department meeting,
when I ended up losing my choice parking spot
behind the library to the new provost.

I slammed the door. I threw down my book bag
in this particular way I have perfected over the years
that lets my wife understand
the contempt I have for my enemies,
which is prodigious. And then with great skill
she built a gin and tonic
that would have pleased the very gods,
and with epic patience she listened
as I told her of my wrath, and of what I intended to do
to so-and-so, and also to what's-his-name.

And then there was another gin and tonic
and presently my wrath abated and was forgotten,
and peace came to reign once more
in the great halls and courtyards of my house.

from The Moving Toyshop, chapter 10, The Episode of the Interrupted Seminar (Edmund Crispin)

They were assembled by a means peculiar to Oxford - vague promises of excitement accompanied by more definite promises of drink.

from Maskerade (Terry Pratchett)

'Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,' said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. 'There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what I am doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely.'

from Moving Pictures (Terry Pratchett)

'And you can nearly hear voices,' she added.

'You can't nearly hear voices,' said Victor, in the hope that his own rational mind would believe him. 'You either hear them or you don't. Listen, we're both just tired. That's all it is. We've been working hard and, er, not getting much sleep, so it's understandable that we think we're nearly hearing and seeing things.'

'Oh, so you're nearly seeing things, are you?' said Ginger triumphantly. 'And don't you go around using that calm and reasonable tone of voice on me,' she added. 'I hate it when people go around being calm and reasonable at me.'

from The Professor, chapter XXIII (Charlotte Brontë)

Now, reader, during the last two pages I have been giving you honey fresh from flowers, but you must not live entirely on food so luscious; taste then a little gall - just a drop, by way of change.

At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings: having temporarily forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and drinking, I went to bed fasting. I had been excited and in action all day, and had tasted no food since eight that morning; besides, for a fortnight past, I had known no rest either of body or mind; the last few hours had been a sweet delirium, it would not subside now, and till long after midnight, broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed. At last I dozed, but not for long; it was yet quite dark when I awoke, and my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face, and like him, "The hair of my flesh stood up." I might continue the parallel, for in truth, though I saw nothing yet "A thing was secretly brought unto me, and mine ear received a little thereof; there was silence, and I heard a voice," saying:

"In the midst of Life, we are in Death."

That sound, and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it, many would have regarded as supernatural; but I recognized it at once as the effect of reaction. Man is ever clogged with his Mortality, and it was my mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to an aim, had overstrained the body's comparative weakness. A horror of great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly, but had thought for ever departed: I was temporarily a prey to Hypochondria. She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How she would discourse to me of her own Country - The Grave - and again and again promise to conduct me there ere long; and, drawing me to the very brink of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary than moonlight. "Necropolis!" she would whisper, pointing to the pale piles, and add, "It contains a mansion, prepared for you."

But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister; and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress, finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance, and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells then had power; but now, when my course was widening, my prospect brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires, folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap of Fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft hand - why did Hypochondria accost me now?

I repulsed her, as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days. Afterwards my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt, but I was glad when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances and sit at her side freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.

Binsey Poplars, felled 1879 (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew -
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,

Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

Hymnus ad incensum lucernae [Cathemerinon 5] (Prudentius)

Inventor rutili, dux bone, luminis
qui certis vicibus tempora dividis,
merso sole chaos ingruit horridum,
lucem redde tuis Christe fidelibus.

Quamvis innumero sidere regiam
lunarique polum lampade pinxeris,
incussu silicis lumina nos tamen
monstras saxigeno semine quaerere:

Ne nesciret homo spem sibi luminis
in Christi solido corpore conditam,
qui dici stabilem se voluit petram,
nostris igniculis unde genus venit.

Pinguis quos olei rore madentibus
lychnis aut facibus pascimus aridis:
quin et fila favis scirpea floreis
presso melle prius conlita fingimus.

Vivax flamma viget, seu cava testula
sucum linteolo suggerit ebrio,
seu pinus piceam fert alimoniam,
seu ceram teretem stuppa calens bibit.

Nectar de liquido vertice fervidum
guttatim lacrimis stillat olentibus,
ambustum quoniam vis facit ignea
imbrem de madido flere cacumine.

Splendent ergo tuis muneribus, Pater,
flammis mobilibus scilicet atria,
absentemque diem lux agit aemula,
quam nox cum lacero victa fugit peplo.

Sed quis non rapidi luminis arduam
manantemque Deo cernat originem?
Moyses nempe Deum spinifera in rubo
vidit conspicuo lumine flammeum.

Felix, qui meruit sentibus in sacris
caelestis solii visere principem,
iussus nexa pedum vincula solvere,
ne sanctum involucris pollueret locum.

Hunc ignem populus sanguinis incliti
maiorum meritis tutus et inpotens,
suetus sub dominis vivere barbaris,
iam liber sequitur longa per avia:

qua gressum tulerant castraque caerulae
noctis per medium concita moverant,
plebem pervigilem fulgure praevio
ducebat radius sole micantior.

Sed rex Niliaci littoris invido
fervens felle iubet praevalidam manum
in bellum rapidis ire cohortibus
ferratasque acies clangere classicum.

Sumunt arma viri seque minacibus
accingunt gladiis, triste canit tuba:
hic fidit iaculis, ille volantia
praefigit calamis spicula Gnosiis.

Densetur cuneis turba pedestribus,
currus pars et equos et volucres rotas
conscendunt celeres signaque bellica
praetendunt tumidis clara draconibus.

Hic iam servitii nescia pristini
gens Pelusiacis usta vaporibus
tandem purpurei gurgitis hospita
rubris littoribus fessa resederat.

Hostis dirus adest cum duce perfido,
infert et validis praelia viribus:
Moyses porro suos in mare praecipit
constans intrepidis tendere gressibus:

praebent rupta locum stagna viantibus
riparum in faciem pervia, sistitur
circumstans vitreis unda liquoribus,
dum plebs sub bifido permeat aequore.

Pubes quin etiam decolor asperis
inritata odiis rege sub inpio
Hebraeum sitiens fundere sanguinem
audet se pelago credere concavo:

ibant praecipiti turbine percita
fluctus per medios agmina regia,
sed confusa dehinc unda revolvitur
in semet revolans gurgite confluo.

Currus tunc et equos telaque naufraga
ipsos et proceres et vaga corpora
nigrorum videas nare satellitum,
arcis iustitium triste tyrannicae.

Quae tandem poterit lingua retexere
laudes Christe tuas? qui domitam Pharon
plagis multimodis cedere praesuli
cogis iustitiae vindice dextera.

Qui pontum rapidis aestibus invium
persultare vetas, ut refluo in salo
securus pateat te duce transitus,
et mox unda rapax devoret inpios.

Cui ieiuna eremi saxa loquacibus
exundant scatebris, et latices novos
fundit scissa silex, quae sitientibus
dat potum populis axe sub igneo.

Instar fellis aqua tristifico in lacu
fit ligni venia mel velut Atticum:
lignum est, quo sapiunt aspera dulcius;
quam praefixa cruci spes hominum viget.

Inplet castra cibus tunc quoque ninguidus,
inlabens gelida grandine densius:
his mensas epulis, hac dape construunt,
quam dat sidereo Christus ab aethere.

Nec non imbrifero ventus anhelitu
crassa nube leves invehit alites,
quae conflata in humum, cum semel agmina
fluxerunt, reduci non revolant fuga.

Haec olim patribus praemia contulit
insignis pietas numinis unici,
cuius subsidio nos quoque vescimur
pascentes dapibus pectora mysticis.

Fessos ille vocat per freta seculi
discissis populum turbinibus regens
iactatasque animas mille laboribus
iustorum in patriam scandere praecipit.

Illic purpureis tecta rosariis
omnis fragrat humus calthaque pinguia
et molles violas et tenues crocos
fundit fonticulis uda fugacibus.

Illic et gracili balsama surculo
desudata fluunt, raraque cinnama
spirant et folium, fonte quod abdito
praelambens fluvius portat in exitum.

Felices animae prata per herbida
concentu parili suave sonantibus
hymnorum modulis dulce canunt melos,
calcant et pedibus lilia candidis.

Sunt et spiritibus saepe nocentibus
paenarum celebres sub Styge feriae
illa nocte, sacer qua rediit Deus stagnis
ad superos ex Acheronticis.

Non sicut tenebras de face fulgida
surgens oceano Lucifer inbuit,
sed terris Domini de cruce tristibus
maior sole novum restituens diem.

Marcent suppliciis tartara mitibus,
exultatque sui carceris otio
functorum populus liber ab ignibus,
nec fervent solito flumina sulphure.

Nos festis trahimus per pia gaudia
noctem conciliis votaque prospera
certatim vigili congerimus prece
extructoque agimus liba sacrario.

Pendent mobilibus lumina funibus,
quae suffixa micant per laquearia,
et de languidulis fota natatibus
lucem perspicuo flamma iacit vitro.

Credas stelligeram desuper aream
ornatam geminis stare trionibus,
et qua bosporeum temo regit iugum,
passim purpureos spargier hesperos.

O res digna, Pater, quam tibi roscidae
noctis principio grex tuus offerat,
lucem, qua tribuis nil pretiosius,
lucem, qua reliqua praemia cernimus.

Tu lux vera oculis, lux quoque sensibus,
intus tu speculum, tu speculum foris,
lumen, quod famulans offero, suscipe,
tinctum pacifici chrismatis unguine.

Per Christum genitum, summe Pater, tuum,
in quo visibilis stat tibi gloria,
qui noster Dominus, qui tuus unicus
spirat de patrio corde paraclitum.

Per quem splendor, honos, laus, sapientia,
maiestas, bonitas, et pietas tua
regnum continuat numine triplici
texens perpetuis secula seculis.

from The Silver Chair, chapter sixteen, The Healing of Harms (C.S. Lewis)

'Sir,' said Caspian, 'I've always wanted to have just one glimpse of their world. Is that wrong?'

'You cannot want wrong things any more, now that you have died, my son,' said Aslan.

from The Dream of Gerontius (John Henry Newman)

ANGEL.

All hail! my child,
My child and brother, hail? what wouldest thou?

SOUL.

I would have nothing but to speak with theee
For speaking's sake. I wish to hold with thee
Conscious communion; though I fain would know
A maze of things, were it but meet to ask,
And not a curiousness.

ANGEL.

You cannot now
Cherish a wish which ought not to be wished.

Still-Life (Elizabeth Daryush)

Through the open French window the warm sun
lights up the polished breakfast-table, laid
round a bowl of crimson roses, for one—
a service of Worcester porcelain, arrayed
near it a melon, peaches, figs, small hot
rolls in a napkin, fairy rack of toast,
butter in ice, high silver coffee pot,
and, heaped on a salver, the morning’s post.

She comes over the lawn, the young heiress,
from her early walk in her garden-wood
feeling that life’s a table set to bless
her delicate desires with all that’s good,

that even the unopened future lies
like a love-letter, full of sweet surprise.

Vertue (George Herbert)

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skie:
The dew shall weep thy fall to night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My musick shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Onely a sweet and vertuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

from The Diary of a Provincial Lady and its sequels (E.M. Delafield)

Letter by second post from my dear old school-friend Cissie Crabbe, asking if she may come here for two nights or so on her way to Norwich. (Query: Why Norwich? Am surprised to realise that anybody ever goes to, lives at, or comes from, Norwich, but quite see that this is unreasonable of me. Remind myself how very little one knows of the England one lives in, which vaguely suggests a quotation. This, however, does not materialise.)

-

Find it difficult to get 'Oranges and Lemons' going, whilst at same time appearing to give intelligent attention to remarks from visiting mother concerning Exhibition of Italian Pictures at Burlington House. Find myself telling her how marvellous I think them, although in actual fact have not yet seen them at all. Realise that this mis-statement should be corrected at once, but omit to do so, and later find myself involved in entirely unintentional web of falsehood. Should like to work out how far morally to blame for this state of things, but have not time.

-

Cocktails, and wholly admirable dinner, further brighten the evening. I sit next Editor and she rather rashly encourages me to give my opinion of her paper. I do so freely, thanks to cocktail and Editor's charming manners, which combine to produce in me the illusion that my words are witty, valuable and thoroughly well worth listening to. (Am but too well aware that later in the night I shall wake up in cold sweat, and view this scene in retrospect with very different feelings as to my own part in it.)

-

Barbara weeps. I kiss her. Howard Fitzsimmons selects this moment to walk in with the tea, at which I sit down again in confusion and begin to talk about the Vicarage daffodils being earlier than ours, just as Barbara launches into the verdict in the Podmore Case. We gyrate uneasily in and out of these topics while Howard Fitzsimmons completes his preparations for tea. Atmosphere ruined, and destruction completed by my own necessary enquiries as to Barbara's wishes in the matter of milk, sugar, bread-and-butter, and so on.

-

Arrival of Time and Tide, find that I have been awarded half of second prize for charming little effort that in my opinion deserves better. Robert's attempt receives an honourable mention. Recognise pseudonym of first-prize winner as being that adopted by Mary Kellway. Should like to think that generous satisfaction envelops me, at dear friend's success, but am not sure. This week's competition announces itself as a Triolet - literary form that I cannot endure, and rules of which I am totally unable to master.

-

Decide definitely on joining Rose at Ste. Agathe, and write and tell her so. Die now cast, and Rubicon crossed - or rather will be, on achieving further side of the Channel. Robert, on the whole, takes lenient view of entire project, and says he supposes that nothing else will satisfy me, and better not count on really hot weather promised by Rose but take good supply of woollen underwear. Mademoiselle is sympathetic, but theatrical, and exclaims C'est la Ste. Vierge qui a tout arrangé! which sounds like a travel agency, and shocks me.

-

Photographs taken at Ste. Agathe arrive, and I am - perhaps naturally - much more interested in them than anybody else appears to be. (Bathing dress shows up as being even more becoming than I thought it was, though hair, on the other hand, not at its best - probably owing to salt water.) Notice, regretfully, how much more time I spend in studying views of myself, than on admirable group of delightful friends, or even beauties of Nature, as exemplified in camera studies of sea and sky.

-

At last we separate, and I tell Rose that this has been the most wonderful evening I have known for years, and she says that champagne often does that, and we go to our respective rooms.

Query presents itself here: Are the effects of alcohol always wholly to be regretted, or do they not sometimes serve useful purpose of promoting self-confidence? Answer, to-night, undoubtedly Yes, but am not prepared to make prediction as to tomorrow's reactions.

-

Pamela receives me in small room - more looking-glass, but fewer pouffes, and angular blocks are red with blue zigzags - and startles me by kissing me with utmost effusion. This very kind, and only wish I had been expecting it, as could then have responded better and with less appearance of astonishment amounting to alarm.

-

Bell rings again, and fails to leave off. I am filled with horror, and look up at it - inacessible position, and nothing to be seen except two mysterious little jam-jars and some wires. Climb on a chair to investigate, then fear electrocution and climb down again without having done anything. Housekeeper from upstairs rushes down, and unknown females from basement rush up, and we all look at the ceiling and say Better fetch a Man. This is eventually done, and I meditate ironical article on Feminism, while bell rings on madly. Man, however, arrives, says Ah, yes, he thought as much, and at once reduces bell to order, apparently by sheer power of masculinity.

Am annoyed, and cannot settle down to anything.

-

Evening at Institute reasonably successful - am much impressed by further display of efficiency from niece, as President - I speak about Books, and obtain laughs by introduction of three entirely irrelevant anecdotes, am introduced to felt hat and fur coat, felt hat and blue jumper, felt hat and tweeds, and so on. Names of all alike remain impenetrably mysterious, as mine no doubt to them.

(Flight of fancy here as to whether this deplorable, but customary, state of affairs is in reality unavoidable? Theory exists that it has been completely overcome in America, where introductions always entirely audible and frequently accompanied by short biographical sketch. Should like to go to America.)

-

On the whole, am definitely relieved when emerald-brooch owner says that It is too, too sad, but she must fly, as she really is responsible for the whole thing, and it can't begin without her - which might mean a new Permanent Wave, or a command performance at Buckingham Palace, but shall never know now which, as she departs without further explanation.

Make very inferior exit of my own, being quite unable to think of any reason for going except that I have been wanting to almost ever since I arrived - which cannot, naturally, be produced.

-

Rose's Viscountess - henceforth Anne to me - rings up, and says that she has delightful scheme by which Rose is to motor me on Sunday to place - indistinguishable on telephone - in Buckinghamshire, where delightful Hotel, with remarkably beautiful garden, exists, and where we are to meet Anne and collection of interesting literary friends for lunch. Adds flatteringly that it will be so delightful to meet me again - had meant to say this myself about her, but must now abandon it, being unable to think out paraphrase in time. Reply that I shall look forward to Sunday, and we ring off.

-

Become surprisingly sleepy at ten o'clock - although this never happened to me in London - and go up to bed.

Extraordinary and wholly undesirable tendency displays itself to sit upon window-seat and think about Myself - but am well aware that this kind of thing never a real success, and that it will be part of wisdom to get up briskly instead and look for shoe-trees to insert in evening-shoes - which I accordingly do; and shortly afterwards find myself in bed and ready to go to sleep.

Whalesong (Sophie Stephenson-Wright)

I boom-mumble I bass-blow
I hull-heavy I big/slow
I boat-bump I limpet-skin
I soft-sink I sky-swim
I sea-search I salt-swallow
I bone-backed I fluke-follow
I gulf-cross I listen-talk
I moon-map I wave-walk
I tail-turn I time-keep
I ship-wreck I song-seek
I blue-blood I grumble-sing
I fish-heart I dream king

from Silas Marner, chapter 10 (George Eliot)

Dolly was much puzzled at this new world, but she was rather afraid of inquiring further, lest 'chapel' meant some haunt of wickedness. After a little thought, she said:

'Well, Master Marner, it's niver too late to turn over a new leaf, and if you've niver had no church, there's no telling the good it'll do you. For I feel so set up and comfortable as niver was, when I've been and heard the prayers, and the singing to the praise and glory o' God, as Mr Macey gives out - and Mr Crackenthorp saying good words, and more partic' lar on Sacramen' Day; and if a bit o' trouble comes, I feel as I can put up wi' it, for I've looked for help i' the right quarter, and gev myself up to Them as we must all give ourselves up to at the last; and if we'n done our part, it isn't to be believed as Them as are above us 'ull be worse nor we are, and come short o' Theirn.'

Poor Dolly's exposition of her simple Raveloe theology fell rather unmeaningly on Silas' ears, for there was no word in it that could rouse a memory of what he had known as religion, and his comprehension was quite baffled by the plural pronoun, which was no heresy of Dolly's, but only her way of avoiding a presumptuous familiarity.

from Linnets and Valerians, chapter 2, Where they went (Elizabeth Goudge)

'Betsy never takes cold,' she reassured him. 'Timothy does, but I'll make him keep his combinations on.'

'Combinations of what?' asked the elderly gentleman.

'Just combinations,' said Nan. 'What we wear next to our skins.'

'Ah,' said the elderly gentleman. 'Combinations. I must behold them at some future and more suitable occasion, for the extension of knowledge has always been of prime importance to me. Good night.'

from Period Piece, chapter IV, Education (Gwen Raverat)

School upset me very much at first, and I did not think that I could survive it, when the poison gas of homesickness settled down over my head, with its indescribably nausea. Though it was not really home-sickness, for I did not want to go home, only to escape into an air which I could breathe. I remember the first morning, kneeling at prayers (an alarming rite to me), and staring out of the window, when my eyes ought to have been tight shut, and thinking: 'If only I could get out into that garden, perhaps I might feel better; anyhow there are some quite ordinary trees there, and some real grass' - for everything inside the house seemed to be tainted with a nightmare horror.

'For on þhat is so feir ant brist' (anonymous, thirteenth century)

For on þhat is so feir ant brist

Velud maris stella,

Bristore þen þe daiis list,

Parens et puella,

I crie þe grace of þe,

Levedi, priie þi sone for me,

Tam pia,

Þat I mote come to þe,

Maria.

Levedi, best of alle þing,

Rosa sine spina,

Þou bere Jhesu, hevene King,

Gratia divina.

Of alle þou berest þat pris,

Heie quen in Parais

Electa,

Moder milde ant maidan ec

Effecta.

In car ant consail þou art best

Felix fecundata,

To alle weri þou art rest,

Mater honorata.

Bihold tou him wid milde mod

Þat for us alle scedde is blod

In cruce,

Bidde we moten come to him

In luce.

Al þe world it wes furlorn

Þoru Eva peccatrice

Toforn þat Jhesu was iborn

Ex te genitrice;

Þorou Ave e wende awei

Þe þestri nist ant come þe dai

Salutis.

Þe welle springet out of þe

Virtutis.

Wel þou wost he is þi sone

Ventre quem portasti;

He nul nout werne þe þi bone

Parvum quem lactasti.

So god ant so mild e is,

He bringet us alle into is blis

Superni;

He havet idut þe foule put

Inferni.

from The Last Battle, chapter 11, The pace quickens (C.S. Lewis)

Feeling terribly alone, Jill ran out about twenty feet, put her right leg back and her left leg forward, and set an arrow to her string. She wished her hands were not shaking so. 'That's a rotten shot!' she said as her first arrow sped towards the enemy and flew over their heads. But she had another on the string next moment; she knew that speed was what mattered.

from Gaudy Night, chapter 8 (Dorothy L. Sayers)

'Hell!' said a voice which set her heart beating by its unexpected familiarity, 'have I hurt you? Me all over - bargin' and bumpin' about like a bumble-bee in a bottle. Clumsy lout! I say, do say I haven't hurt you. Because, if I have, I'll run straight across and drown myself in Mercury.'

He extended the arm that was not supporting Harriet in a vague gesture towards the pond.

'Not in the least, thank you,' said Harriet, recovering herself.

'Thank God for that. This is my unlucky day. I've just had a most unpleasant interview with the Junior Censor. Was there anything breakable in the parcels? Oh, look! your bag's opened itself wide and all the little oojahs have gone down the steps. Please don't move. You stand there, thinkin' up things to call me, and I'll pick 'em all up one by one on my knees sayin' "meā culpā" to every one of 'em.'

He suited the action to the words.

'I'm afraid it hasn't improved the meringues.' He looked up apologetically. 'But if you'll say you forgive me, we'll go and get some new ones from the kitchen - the real kind - you know - speciality of the House, and all that.'

'Please don't bother,' said Harriet.

It wasn't he, of course. This was a lad of twenty-one or two at the most, with a mop of wavy hair tumbling over his forehead and a handsome, petulant face, full of charm, though ominously weak about the curved lips and upward-slanting brows. But the colour of the hair was right - the pale yellow of ripe barley; and the light drawling voice, with its clipped syllables and ready babble of speech; and the quick, sidelong smile; and above all, the beautiful, sensitive hands that were gathering the 'oojahs' deftly up into their native bag.

'You haven't called me any names yet,' said the young man.

'I believe I could almost put a name to you,' said Harriet. 'Isn't it - are you any relation of Peter Wimsey's?'

Anonymous quatrain of uncertain origin

In Heaven there'll be no algebra,
No learning dates or names,
But only playing golden harps
And reading Henry James.

from The French Lieutenant's Woman (John Fowles)

He had thought by his brief gesture and assurance to take the first step towards putting out the fire the doctor had told him he had lit; but when one is oneself the fuel, firefighting is a hopeless task.

-

He was invited to use the Athenaeum, he had shaken hands with a senator, no less; and with the wrinkled claw of one even greater, if less hectoringly loquacious - old Nathaniel Lodge, who had heard the cannon on Bunker Hill from his nurse's room in Beacon Street. An even greater still, whom one might have not very interestedly chatted to if one had chanced to gain entry to the Lowell circle in Cambridge, and who was himself on the early threshold of a decision precisely the opposite in its motives and predispositions, a ship, as it were, straining at its moorings in a contrary current and arming for its sinuous and loxodromic voyage to the richer though silted harbour of Rye (but I must not ape the master), Charles did not meet.

-

Once, as he made his way to the Athenaeum across the Common, he saw a girl ahead of him on an oblique path. He strode across the grass, he was so sure. But she was not Sarah. And he had to stammer an apology. He went on his way shaken, so intense in those few moments had been his excitement. The next day he advertised in a Boston newspaper. Wherever he went after that he advertised.

from Little Grey Rabbit's Party (Alison Uttley)

Hare put his flute in its case and Squirrel and Grey Rabbit tidied away the crumbs from the feast. Then upstairs they all went to bed, yawning sleepily.

Little Grey Rabbit opened her attic window and held her blue beads up in the moonlight so that they shone like blue flames.

‘Although I did lose my dear thimble, it was a most beautiful party,’ she whispered.

from the production diaries for Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson)

Jane reminds us that God is in his heaven, the monarch on his throne and the pelvis firmly beneath the ribcage. Apparently rock and roll liberated the pelvis and it hasn't been the same since.

Hugh Grant arrives tomorrow but I've nicked the prettiest room. Very low ceiling, so can't do Reebok stepping without knocking myself out.

Roast beef and a square of chocolate for lunch. Very yang.

Ang's taken to requesting what he calls 'smirks.' 'Endearing smirk, please' - which I find pretty tricky. 'Try rigorous smirk' - even trickier.

It's Hugh's close-up. After several takes, Ang said to Hugh, 'Now do it like a bad actor.' Hugh: 'That was the one I just did.'

Very bolshie 'period' sheep with horns and perms and too much wool. If they fall over, they can't get up. Someone has to help them. Can't be right. Ang wants sheep in every exterior shot and dogs in every interior shot. I've suggested we have sheep in some of the interiors as well.

Ang, after a particularly trying time with our flock (very quiet): 'No more sheeps. Never again sheeps.'

The party on Saturday was wild. Everyone fell on the opportunity to let go and was drunk before having drunk anything. Alan nearly killed me, whirling me about the place. Everyone was under the table by midnight except Greg, who was on the ceiling.

Good work today, though. Willoughby's entrance through the mist on a white horse. We all swoon. Ang laughed at us. 'This scene is ridiculous,' he said. 'It's a girl thing,' Lindsay and I replied. Really wet, though, that rain.

Gemma is magic. She looks so innocent and pure and then she opens her mouth and says something rude. She's got the dirtiest laught I've ever heard.

Gemma, after two hours' waiting: 'Oh, God, it's like childbirth. You go on and on and on and on and still nothing happens.'

Kate makes a bracelet. We're in our nighties, our plaits down our backs. Ang settles down for a snooze. The weather does worry him. Only one day left at this location. Hypnotic, Kate's hands knotting the threads.

We try to find an extra line for Margaret as she picks up Willoughby's gear in the rain. Lindsay suggests, 'I'll get the stuff,' which makes me laugh immoderately. I counter with Willoughby saying, 'Pray get the stuff.' 'It's in the book!' we keep screaming.

I appear to have accumulated more things. How does this happen? I haven't shopped. Think my bath oils have bred.

Kate did her breakdown scene wonderfully well. In nearly all the weepy scenes I've tried to get one good joke. Less indulgent.

Noon. Finish scene with Alan.
Me: 'Oh! I've just ovulated.'
Alan (long pause): 'Thank you for that.'

Calendae Maiae (George Buchanan, trans. Philip Ford)

salvete sacris deliciis sacrae
Maiae Calendae, laetitiae et mero
ludisque dicatae iocisque
et teneris Charitum choreis.

salve voluptas et nitidum decus
anni recurrens perpetua vice
et flos renascentis iuventae
in senium properantis aevi.

cum blanda veris temperies novo
illuxit orbi, primaque saecula
fulsere flaventi metallo
sponte sua sine lege iusta,

talis per omnes continuus tenor
annos tepenti rura Favonio
mulcebat et nullis feraces
seminibus recreabat agros.

talis beatis incubat insulis
felicis aurae perpetuus tepor
et nesciis campis senectae
difficilis querulique morbi.

talis silentum per tacitum nemus
levi susurrat murmure spiritus,
Lethenque iuxta obliviosam
funereas agitat cupressos.

forsan supremis cum Deus ignibus
piabit orbem, laetaque saecula
mundo reducet, talis aura
aethereos animos fovebit.

salve fugacis gloria saeculi,
salve secunda digna dies nota,
salve vetustae vitae imago
et specimen venientis aevi.

Hail, May Day, sacred to sacred delights, dedicated to joy and wine, games, jesting, and the delicate dances of the Graces. Hail pleasure, and bright glory of the year returning in an eternal cycle, and bloom of reviving youth, hastening towards time’s old age. When spring’s pleasant warmth shone upon a new world, and the first generations gleamed with golden metal, naturally righteous without any laws, an uninterrupted course like this through all the years caressed the countryside with a warm West Wind, and renewed the fertile fields without seeds. Such is the endless warmth from delightful breezes which lies over the Isles of the Blessed, and over the fields which know not crabbed old age or complaining disease. Such a breath murmurs in a gentle whisper through the quiet grove of the Silent ones, and stirs the deathly cypress trees beside Lethe, river of forgetfulness. Perhaps when God purifies the world in the final conflagration and brings back happy ages to the universe, such a breeze will refresh the heavenly spirits. Hail, glory of a fleeting age, hail, day worthy of a favourable mark, hail, picture of a former life, and token of an age to come.

Thyrsis (Matthew Arnold)

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!
In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;
The village street its haunted mansion lacks,
And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,
And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks -
Are ye too changed, ye hills?
See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men
To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!
Here came I often, often, in old days -
Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.

Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,
Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns
The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames?
The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,
The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames? -
This winter-eve is warm,
Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring,
The tender purple spray on copse and briers!
And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty's heightening,

Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night! -
Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power
Befalls me wandering through this upland dim.
Once passed I blindfold here, at any hour;
Now seldom come I, since I came with him.
That single elm-tree bright
Against the west - I miss it! is it gone?
We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said,
Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead;
While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here,
But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;
And with the country-folk acquaintance made
By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick.
Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assayed.
Ah me! this many a year
My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday!
Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart
Into the world and wave of men depart;
But Thyrsis of his own will went away.

It irked him to be here, he could not rest.
He loved each simple joy the country yields,
He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,
For that a shadow loured on the fields,
Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep.
Some life of men unblest
He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head.
He went; his piping took a troubled sound
Of storms that rage outside our happy ground;
He could not wait their passing, he is dead.

So, some tempestuous morn in early June,
When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er,
Before the roses and the longest day -
When garden-walks and all the grassy floor
With blossoms red and white of fallen May
And chestnut-flowers are strewn -
So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry,
From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,
Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:
The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I!

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?
Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,
Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,
Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,
And stocks in fragrant blow;
Roses that down the alleys shine afar,
And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,
And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,
And the full moon, and the white evening-star.

He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown!
What matters it? next year he will return,
And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days,
With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,
And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways,
And scent of hay new-mown.
But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see;
See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,
And blow a strain the world at last shall heed -
For Time, not Corydon, hath conquered thee!

Alack, for Corydon no rival now! -
But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate,
Some good survivor with his flute would go,
Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate;
And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow,
And relax Pluto's brow,
And make leap up with joy the beauteous head
Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair
Are flowers first opened on Sicilian air,
And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead.

O easy access to the hearer's grace
When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!
For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,
She knew the Dorian water's gush divine,
She knew each lily white which Enna yields
Each rose with blushing face;
She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain.
But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard!
Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd;
And we should tease her with our plaint in vain!

Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be,
Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour
In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill!
Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?
I know the wood which hides the daffodil,
I know the Fyfield tree,
I know what white, what purple fritillaries
The grassy harvest of the river-fields,
Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields,
And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries;

I know these slopes; who knows them if not I? -
But many a tingle on the loved hillside,
With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees,
Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried
High towered the spikes of purple orchises,
Hath since our day put by
The coronals of that forgotten time;
Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team,
And only in the hidden brookside gleam
Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime.

Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door,
Above the locks, above the boating throng,
Unmoored our skiff when through the Wytham flats,
Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among
And darting swallows and light water-gnats,
We tracked the shy Thames shore?
Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell
Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,
Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass? -
They all are gone, and thou art gone as well!

Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.
I see her veil draw soft across the day,
I feel her slowly chilling breath invade
The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey;
I feel her finger light
Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train; -
The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,
The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again.

And long the way appears, which seem'd so short
To the less practised eye of sanguine youth;
And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air,
The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth,
Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare!
Unbreachable the fort
Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall;
And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows,
And near and real the charm of thy repose,
And night as welcome as a friend would fall.

But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss
Of quiet! - Look, adown the dusk hill-side,
A troop of Oxford hunters going home,
As in old days, jovial and talking, ride!
From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come.
Quick! let me fly, and cross
Into yon farther field! - 'Tis done; and see,
Backed by the sunset, which doth glorify
The orange and pale violet evening-sky,
Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree!

I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil,
The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,
The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,
And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out.
I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night,
Yet, happy omen, hail!
Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale
(For there thine earth forgetting eyelids keep
The morningless and unawakening sleep
Under the flowery oleanders pale),

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there! -
Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,
These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,
That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;
To a boon southern country he is fled,
And now in happier air,
Wandering with the great Mother's train divine
(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,
I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)
Within a folding of the Apennine,

Thou hearest the immortal chants of old! -
Putting his sickle to the perilous grain
In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,
For thee the Lityerses-song again
Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;
Sings his Sicilian fold,
His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes -
And how a call celestial round him rang,
And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang,
And all the marvel of the golden skies.

There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here
Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair.
Despair I will not, while I yet descry
'Neath the mild canopy of English air
That lonely tree against the western sky.
Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear,
Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee!
Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay,
Woods with anemonies in flower till May,
Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?

A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,
Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.
This does not come with houses or with gold,
With place, with honour, and a flattering crew;
'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold -
But the smooth-slipping weeks
Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;
Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,
He wends unfollowed, he must house alone;
Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.

Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound;
Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!
Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,
If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power,
If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.
And this rude Cumner ground,
Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,
Here cams't thou in thy jocund youthful time,
Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!
And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.

What though the music of thy rustic flute
Kept not for long its happy, country tone;
Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note
Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,
Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat -
It failed, and thou wage mute!
Yet hadst thou always visions of our light,
And long with men of care thou couldst not stay,
And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,
Left human haunt, and on alone till night.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!
'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore,
Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.
Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar,
Let in thy voice a whisper often come,
To chase fatigue and fear:
Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died.
Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.
Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill,
Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.

Adlestrop (Edward Thomas)

Yes. I remember Adlestrop —
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

'If truth in hearts that perish' (A.E. Housman)

If truth in hearts that perish
Could move the powers on high,
I think the love I bear you
Should make you not to die.

Sure, sure, if stedfast meaning,
If single thought could save,
The world might end to-morrow,
You should not see the grave.

This long and sure-set liking,
This boundless will to please,
— Oh, you should live for ever
If there were help in these.

But now, since all is idle,
To this lost heart be kind,
Ere to a town you journey
Where friends are ill to find.

from Good Wives, chapter 1, Gossip (Louisa M. Alcott)

'Do you know I like this room best of all in my baby-house,' added Meg, a minute after, as they went upstairs, and she looked into her well-stored linen closet.

Beth was there, laying the snowy piles smoothly on the shelves, and exulting over the goodly array. All three laughed as Meg spoke; for that linen closet was a joke. You see, having said that if Meg married `that Brooke' she shouldn't have a cent of her money, Aunt March was rather in a quandary, when time had appeased her wrath and made her repent her vow. She never broke her word, and was much exercised in her mind how to get round it, and at last devised a plan whereby she could satisfy herself. Mrs Carrol, Florence's mamma, was ordered to buy, have made and marked a generous supply of house and table linen, and send it as her present. All of which was faithfully done, but the secret leaked out, and was greatly enjoyed by the family; for Aunt March tried to look utterly unconscious, and insisted that she could give nothing but the old-fashioned pearls, long promised to the first bride.

'That's a housewifely taste, which I am glad to see. I had a young friend who set up housekeeping with six sheets, but she had finger bowls for company, and that satisfied her,' said Mrs. March, patting the damask tablecloths with a truly feminine appreciation of their fineness.

'I haven't a single finger bowl, but this is a "set out" that will last me all my days, Hannah says;" and Meg looked quite contented, as well she might.

from The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street (Helene Hanff)

We went outside and saw the playing fields where all those wars were supposedly won. Boys were playing cricket, a few strolled by swinging tennis rackets. On Saturdays the boys are allowed to wear ordinary sports clothes but we saw several in the Eton uniform: black tail coat, white shirt, striped trousers. PB says they don't wear the top hat any more except on state occasions. (Those top hats kept the boys out of trouble. If an Eton boy tried to sneak into an off-limits pub or movie, the manager could spot that top hat from anywhere in the house and throw him out.)

The faces of the boys are unbelievably clean and chiseled and beautiful. And the tail coats - which must have looked outlandish in the 1940's and 50's - look marvelously appropriate with the long hair the boys wear now. What with the cameo faces, the long hair brushed to a gleam and the perfectly cut tails, they looked like improbable Edwardian princes.

from The Lord of the Rings, book 6, chapter 4, The Field of Cormallen (J.R.R. Tolkien)

'Noon?' said Sam, trying to calculate. 'Noon of what day?'

'The fourteenth of the New Year,' said Gandalf; 'or if you like, the eighth day of April in the Shire-reckoning. But in Gondor the New Year will always now begin upon the twenty-fifth of March when Sauron fell, and when you were brought out of the fire to the King.'

The Annunciation and Passion (John Donne)

Tamely, frail body, abstain to-day; to-day
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away;
She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who's all;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall;
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive, yet dead;
She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen;
At once a son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity;
At once receiver and the legacy.
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th' abridgement of Christ's story, which makes one —
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east —
Of th' angel's Ave, and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God's Court of Faculties,
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these.
As by the self-fix'd Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where th'other is, and which we say —
Because it strays not far — doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to him, we know,
And stand firm, if we by her motion go.
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar, doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud; to one end both.
This Church by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one;
Or 'twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man, and leave to be;
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating spouse would join in one
Manhood's extremes; He shall come, He is gone;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all,
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords.
This treasure then, in gross, my soul, uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

from The Wind in the Willows, chapter I, The River Bank (Kenneth Grahame)

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, 'Up we go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

'This is fine!' he said to himself. 'This is better than whitewashing!' The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.

Dust of Snow (Robert Frost)

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Freshen the Flowers, She Said (Mary Oliver)

So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain
was tender,
and took out the tattered and cut each stem
on a slant,
trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all -
roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,
and more whose names I don't know, in bright new water -
gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take
their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,
the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,
perhaps fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of music
with nothing playing.

'O God of earth and altar' (G.K. Chesterton)

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
From sale and profanation
Of honour and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord.

Tie in a living tether
The prince and priest and thrall,
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to thee.

'For Life I had never cared greatly' (Thomas Hardy)

For Life I had never cared greatly,
As worth a man's while;
Peradventures unsought,
Peradventures that finished in nought,
Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately
Unwon by its style.

In earliest years - why I know not -
I viewed it askance;
Conditions of doubt,
Conditions that leaked slowly out,
May haply have bent me to stand and to show not
Much zest for its dance.

With symphonies soft and sweet colour
It courted me then,
Till evasions seemed wrong,
Till evasions gave in to its song,
And I warmed, until living aloofly loomed duller
Than life among men.

Anew I found nought to set eyes on,
When, lifting its hand,
It uncloaked a star,
Uncloaked it from fog-damps afar,
And showed its beams burning from pole to horizon
As bright as a brand.

And so, the rough highway forgetting,
I pace hill and dale
Regarding the sky,
Regarding the vision on high,
And thus re-illumed have no humour for letting
My pilgrimage fail.

The Green Eye of the Yellow God (J. Milton Hayes)

There's a one-eyed yellow idol
To the north of Kathmandu;
There's a little marble cross below the town;
And a brokenhearted woman
Tends the grave of 'Mad' Carew,
While the yellow god for ever gazes down.

He was known as 'Mad' Carew
By the subs at Kathmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell,
But, for all his foolish pranks,
He was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along
With the passion of the strong,
And that she returned his love was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one,
And arrangements were begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present
She would like from 'Mad' Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad:
And jestingly she made pretence
That nothing else would do ...
But the green eye of the little yellow god.

On the night before the dance
'Mad' Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they pulled at their cigars,
But for once he failed to smile,
And he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night ... beneath the stars.

He returned, before the dawn,
With his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temples ... dripping red.
He was patched up right away,
And he slept all through the day
While the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked her
If she'd send his tunic through.
She brought it and he thanked her with a nod.
He bade her search the pocket,
Saying, 'That's from "Mad" Carew,'
And she found ... the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew,
In the way that women do,
Although her eyes were strangely hot and wet,
But she would not take the stone,
And Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height
On that still and tropic night,
She thought of him ... and hastened to his room.
As she crossed the barrack square
She could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.

His door was open wide,
With silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slippery where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried
In the heart of 'Mad' Carew ...
'Twas the vengeance of the little yellow god.

There's a one-eyed yellow idol
To the north of Kathmandu;
There's a little marble cross below the town;
And a brokenhearted woman
Tends the grave of 'Mad' Carew,
While the yellow god for ever gazes down.

'Alleluia, dulce carmen' (anonymous, trans. J.M. Neale)

Alleluia, dulce carmen,
Vox perennis gaudii,
Alleluia laus suavis
Est choris coelestibus,
Quam canunt Dei manentes
In domo per saecula.

Alleluia laeta mater
Concivis Jerusalem:
Alleluia vox tuorum
Civium gaudentium:
Exsules nos flere cogunt
Babylonis flumina.

Alleluia non meremur
In perenne psallere;
Alleluia nos reatus
Cogit intermittere;
Tempus instat quo peracta
Lugeamus crimina.

Unde laudando precamur
Te beata Trinitas,
Ut tuum nobis videre
Pascha des in aethere,
Quo tibi laeti canamus
Alleluia perpetim.


Alleluya, song of sweetness,
Voice of joy, eternal lay;
Alleluya is the anthem
Of the quires in heavenly day,
Which the Angels sing, abiding
In the house of God alway.

Alleluya thou resoundest,
Salem, Mother ever blest;
Alleluyas without ending
Fit yon place of gladsome rest;
Exiles we, by Babel’s waters
Sit in bondage and distrest.

Alleluya we deserve not
Here to chant for evermore:
Alleluya our transgressions
Make us for awhile give o’er;
For the holy time is coming
Bidding us our sins deplore.

Trinity of endless glory,
Hear thy people as they cry;
Grant us all to keep thine Easter
In our home beyond the sky;
There to thee our Alleluya
Singing everlastingly. Amen.

from Busman's Honeymoon, chapter VI, Back to the Army Again (Dorothy L. Sayers)

'Do,' said Harriet. 'I'll come in a moment.'

She let them go and turned to Peter, who stood motionless, staring down at the table. Oh, my God! she thought, startled by his face, he's a middle-aged man — the half of life gone — he mustn't —

'Peter, my poor dear! And we came here for a quiet honeymoon!'

He turned at her touch and laughed ruefully.

'Damn!' he said. 'And damn! Back to the old grind. Rigor mortis and who-saw-him-last, blood-prints, finger-prints, footprints, information received and it-is-my-dooty-to-warn-you. Quelle scie, mon dieu, quelle scie!'

A young man in a blue uniform put his head in at the door.

'Now then,' said Police-constable Sellon, 'wot's all this?'

from Der Rosenkavalier, Act Three (Hugo von Hofmannsthal)

Marschallin:

Hab' mir's gelobt, ihn lieb zu haben in der richtigen Weis',
daß ich selbst sein Lieb' zu einer andern
noch lieb hab! Hab' mir freilich nicht gedacht,
daß es so bald mir auferlegt sollt' werden!

(seufzend)

Es sind die mehreren Dinge auf der Welt,
so daß sie ein's nicht glauben tät',
wenn man sie möcht' erzählen hör'n.
Alleinig wer's erlebt, der glaubt daran und weiß nicht wie -
Da steht der Bub' und da steh' ich, und mit dem fremden Mädel dort
wird er so glücklich sein, als wie halt Männer
das Glücklichsein versteh'n.

(I chose to love him in the right way,
so that I would love even his love for another!
I truly didn't believe
that I would have to bear it so soon!

(sighing)

Most things in this world
are unbelievable
when you hear about them.
But when they happen to you, you believe them, and don't know why -
There stands the boy and here I stand, and with that strange girl
he will be as happy as any man
knows how to be.)

List of Illustrations from The Great Book of True Stories (London 1936)

IN BOUNDED THE LIONS by Dudley Cowes Frontispiece

AFTER AN INTIMATE MINUTE WITH HIM I GOT THE DAGGER by H. G. Fairbairn 23

ON THE FILTHY FLOOR OF THE CAVE SAT HALF A DOZEN ENORMOUS RATS by Clark Fay 41

THERE HE STOOD SILENT AND SOLITARY by Norman Keen 73

THE BARREL MOVED OVER THEM, PRESENTING ITS BLACK THREATFUL MOUTH by R. Cleaver 101

MY FATHER WAS SWINGING CRAZILY IN MID-AIR by E. B. Thurstan 133

I SAW THE STREET SPLIT OPEN by J. Nicolle 207

I HEARD THE WILD CRIES AND SAW THEIR DARK GLEAMING BODIES by Jack Faulkes 245

THE SIAMESE WAS IN THE TOILS OF A QUICKSAND by T. Grainger Jeffrey 289

HE WAS FIVE YARDS AWAY by S. Tresilian 313

THE ABLE SEAMAN MADE A FLYING LEAP by Norman Hepple 331

HE STAGGERED OUT OF THE KNEE-DEEP SAND WITH HIS FIND by Edward Osmond 369

WE JAMMED ON OUR BRAKES IN HORROR by Clive Uptton 387

HE GLARED AT ME WITH BLOODSHOT EYES by Alfred Sindall 493

THE PRESSURE OF THE GUN WAS NOTICEABLY STRONGER by J. Greenup 539

IT IS EASY TO IMAGINE HOW UNPLEASANT THE TUNNEL WAS by Norman Howard 565

HER HAND CLUTCHED AT MINE by Cyril Holloway 661

from Winter Holiday, chapter XI, Cragfast Sheep (Arthur Ransome)

He remembered then that, after the sheep was lowered, one of the others would have to go all the way back and down into the gully to untie it before they could let him have the rope for the return journey. All that time he would have to sit on the ledge there, with his back against the face of the rock, and wait, and wait, and not look down at his feet. Well, those buzzards were still there.

And then, suddenly, he was startled by a shout from Roger, out of sight above him.

'Here come the dogs!'

And away to the left, far below him, he saw the sledge party coming up the gully, and knew that they had seen him.

John would be there to undo the sheep. It was too late now to try again, but he did wish he had been able to manage a rather more seamanlike knot.

from The Invention of Love, Act Two (Tom Stoppard)

Housman (watching the runners) What do I want?

Chamberlain Nothing which you'd call indecent, though I don't see what's wrong with it myself. You want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself ... to be shipwrecked together, (to) perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him - to die in his arms, like a Spartan, kissed once on the lips ... or just run his errands in the meanwhile. You want him to know what cannot be spoken, and to make the perfect reply, in the same language. (Pause. Still without inflection) He's going to win it. (Finally he warms into excitement as the race passes in front of them.) By God, he is! Come on, Jackson! Up the Patent Office! ... He's won it!

Machines (Michael Donaghy)

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsichord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsichordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.

from Brideshead Revisited, chapter IV (Evelyn Waugh)

'But my dear Sebastian, you can't seriously believe it all.'

'Can't I?'

'I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass.'

'Oh yes, I believe that. It's a lovely idea.'

'But you can't believe things because they're a lovely idea.'

'But I do. That's how I believe.'

Lesbia in Orco (David Vessey)

Reading Catullus on the Northern Line
in Fordyce's edition (which omits the obscene),
I wondered if Lesbia would have got out at Hampstead
or come on with me to Golders Green.

Somehow I don't picture her
on the platform at Bank,
jostled in a smoking carriage
by a man who stank

of 'The Daily Telegraph' and Players plain.
Perhaps I am wrong
there may be somewhere a Lesbia
worthy of song

from Gaius Valerius Catullus, who
counts her kisses like stars in the sky:
but for some reason
she escapes my eye

as I read his carmina on the Underground.
She must be as rare
as the nymph who picked up Peleus
near Weston-super-Mare

as he sailed in the Argo on a virgin sea.
(But isn't that Attis in a shiny suit
asking a dame to dance with him
to the sound of dinning cymbal and of shrilling flute?)

Who? Lesbia? I know her: she went to Leicester Square
and hurried through to Soho in the evening rain,
where she helps the sons of Romulus
drink Japanese champagne.

The Oracles (A.E. Housman)

'Tis mute, the word they went to hear on high Dodona mountain
When winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled,
And mute's the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain,
And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old.

I took my question to the shrine that has not ceased from speaking,
The heart within, that tells the truth and tells it twice as plain;
And from the cave of oracles I heard the priestess shrieking
That she and I should surely die and never live again.

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it;
But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth your mouth no more.
'Tis true there's better boose than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;
And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.

The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stands will die for nought, and home there's no returning.
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.

O Captain! My Captain! (Walt Whitman)

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths — for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

from Uncle Vanya, Act Two (Anton Chekhov, trans. Michael Frayn)

ASTROV. A woman can become a man's friend only through the following progression: first - acquaintance; then - mistress; thereafter, certainly - friend.

from How to be Topp, 8, Extra Tew (Geoffrey Willans)

RUSIAN

How many days till the end of term, o molesvitch 2? Some say 20, others 90, little bro, is the fruit upon the aple tree in the orchard? Only the blosom so you will hav to wait a month or two before you can pinch them o measly weed it is 2006 miles to Moscow. Who cares sa fotherington tomas from a corner of the room where he hav been trussed up who cares a row of butons. i love only robins. Unless you love robins father christmas will not bring you any presents. A volley of shots rings out. WAM! 900 robins bite the dust. That only leaves father christmas, i sa, how flat life is . . . . . .

The swots tell me that rusian used to be like that chiz but it is all different now everybode is joly.

from The Competition Wallah (G.O. Trevelyan), Letter XII and last, Education in India since 1835

The natives of India have, with marvellous eagerness and unanimity, abandoned the dead or effete learning of the East for the living and vigorous literature of England. Whoever can spare the time and money greedily avails himself of the instruction which we offer. 'To such an extent, indeed, is this the case' (I quote the Report on Public Instruction for Bengal Proper) 'that many of our best native scholars can write English and even speak it with greater facility than their mother-tongue'. Interest and ambition, the instinct of imitation and the thirst for knowledge, urge on the students; and, by the aid of a delicate taste, and a strong power of assimilation, their progress is surpassing to one accustomed to the very slender proficiency in the classical tongues obtained by the youth of England after a boyhood devoted almost exclusively to Xenophon and Cicero. Of two hundred scholars who leave Eton in the course of a year, it is much if some three or four can construe a chorus of Euripides without the aid of a translation, or polish up with infinite pains a piece of Latin prose which a Roman might possibly have mistaken for a parody of the 'De Officiis', composed by a Visigoth in the time of Diocletian.

Epitaph to A.E. Housman, in the antechapel, Trinity College, Cambridge

HOC TITVLO COMMEMORATVR
ALFRED EDWARD HOVSMAN
PER XXV ANNOS LINGVAE LATINAE PROFESSOR KENNEDIANVS
ET HVIVS COLLEGII SOCIVS
QVI BENTLEII INSISTENS VESTIGIIS
TEXTVM TRADITVM POETARVM LATINARVM
TANTO INGENII ACVMINE TANTIS DOCTRINAE COPIIS
EDITORVM SOCORDIAM
TAM ACRI CAVILLATIONE CASTIGAVIT
VT HORVM STVDIORVM PAENE REFORMATOR EXSTITERIT
IDEM POETA
TENVI CARMINVM FASCICVLO
SEDEM SIBI TVTAM IN HELICONE NOSTRO VINDICAVIT
OBIIT PRID. KAL. MAI.
A.S. MDCCCCXXXVI AETATIS SVAE LXXVII

from Winnie the Pooh, Chapter Eight, in which Christopher Robin leads an expotition to the North Pole

'Hush!' said Christopher Robin, turning round to Pooh, 'we're just coming to a Dangerous Place.'

'Hush!' said Pooh, turning round quickly to Piglet.

'Hush!' said Piglet to Kanga.

'Hush!' said Kanga to Owl, while Roo said 'Hush!' several times to himself very quietly.

'Hush!' said Owl to Eeyore.

'Hush!' said Eeyore in a terrible voice to all Rabbit's friends-and-relations, and 'Hush!' they said hastily to each other all down the line, until it got to the last one of all. And the last and smallest friend-and-relation was so upset to find that the whole Expotition was saying 'Hush!' to him, that he buried himself head downwards in a crack in the ground, and stayed there for two days until the danger was over, and then went home in a great hurry, and lived quietly with his Aunt ever-afterwards. His name was Alexander Beetle.