On leaving some Friends at an early Hour (John Keats)

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap'd up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
'Tis not content so soon to be alone.

Prayer (Carol Ann Duffy)

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself.  So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now.  Grade I piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town.  Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside.  Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall.  Malin.  Dogger.  Finisterre.

Beeny Cliff (Thomas Hardy)

I

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free -
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.


II

The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.


III

A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.


IV

- Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?


V

What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is - elsewhere - whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.

Frater Ave atque Vale (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!
So they row’d, and there we landed – ‘O venusta Sirmio!’
There to me thro’ all the groves of olive in the summer glow,
There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,
Came that ‘Ave atque Vale’ of the Poet’s hopeless woe,
Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen-hundred years ago,
‘Frater Ave atque Vale’ – as we wander’d to and fro
Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below
Sweet Catullus' all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio!

from Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)

But I wished to say certain things about the Fifth Commandment, and why it should be thought of as belonging to the first tablet.  Briefly, the right worship of God is essential because it forms the mind to a right understanding of God.  God is set apart - He is One, He is not to be imagined as a thing among things (idolatry - this is what Feuerbach failed to grasp).  His name is set apart.  It is sacred (which I take to be a reflection of the sacredness of the Word, the creative utterance which is not of a kind with other language).  Then the Sabbath is set apart from other days, for the enjoyment of time and duration, perhaps, over and above the creatures who inhabit time.  Because 'the beginning,' which might be called the seed of time, is the condition for all the creation that follows.  Then mother and father are set apart, you see.  It seems to me almost a retelling of Creation - First there is the Lord, then the Word, then the Day, then the Man and Woman - and after that Cain and Abel - Thou shalt not kill - and all the sins recorded in those prohibitions, just as crimes are recorded in the laws against them.  So perhaps the tablets differ as addressing the eternal and the temporal.

from The Lord of the Rings, book 6, chapter 7, Homeward Bound (J.R.R. Tolkien)

'Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together,' said Merry.  'We have left all the rest behind, one after another.  It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded.'

'Not to me,' said Frodo.  'To me it feels more like falling asleep again.'

from Coot Club, chapter XVII, Port and Starboard Miss Their Ship (Arthur Ransome)

'A letter?' said Port, looking at the pile by her father's plate.  'But he's had lots.'

'Well, he's ta'en this yin to the telephone,' said Mrs McGinty, and then they heard their father's voice through the open door of the study.

'Never mind about keeping things hot, Mrs McGinty.  I'll have to be gone in a minute ... Hallo!  Hallo!  Hallo!  Is that Norwich Ten-sixty-six?  Norwich ... One-owe-double-six ... Hallo!  Yes.  I said so.  Engaged?  Can't be engaged.  Private exchange.  Please ring them again.  Give them another ring.  A long one.  Hallo!  Hallo!  Is that Norwich One-owe-double-six?  Oh.  Wrong number.  Ring off please ... Hallo!  Exchange?  Oh, please ring off.  Exchange? ... Hallo!  Hallo! ... Bring me a cup of coffee out here, somebody ... Hallo!  Exchange!  Gave me a wrong number.  No.  No.  Not one-double-six.  One-owe-double-six.  Thank you, Bessie.  Take care, Nell.  Don't make me take too big a mouthful.  I've got to be able to talk to these dunderheaded nincompoops.  Hallo!  Oh, is that you, Walters?  Thank goodness for that.  Nip round to the office and get me all the papers in that Bollington business.  Consultations on it this week.  Yes ... All in the folder.  And the deeds ... Yes, yes.  Bring the whole lot down to the station.  Coming in by car.  You'll get it garaged after I've gone.  I've got to catch the nine-one.  Right.  Good man.  Everything on the case ...'  He hung up the receiver, took another mouthful of buttered egg from Starboard, washed it down with a drink of coffee offered him by Port, and hurried back to the dining-room.

'What is it, A.P.?' asked Starboard.

Mr Farland looked at his watch and compared it with the clock on the mantelpiece, a clock won by the Flash at Wroxham Regatta the year before.

'Seven minutes for breakfast ... Yes, Mrs McGinty, if you will be so good.  The small suitcase.  Everything for a week ...'

'You aren't going away?' said Port.

'These things will happen,' said Mr Farland.  'I didn't expect this business to come on for another two months at least ...'

from The Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens)

There was the widow before him, bouncing bodily here and there, with unwonted vigour; and Mr. Tracy Tupman hopping about, with a face expressive of the most intense solemnity, dancing (as a good many people do) as if a quadrille were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings, which it requires inflexible resolution to encounter.

-

There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat.  A vast deal of coolness, and a peculiar degree of judgment, are requisite in catching a hat.  A man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it; he must not rush into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether.  The best way is to keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and cautious, to watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then make a rapid dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your head; smiling pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a joke as anybody else.  There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick's hat rolled sportively before it.  The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide: and on it might have rolled, far beyond Mr. Pickwick's reach, had not its course been providentially stopped, just as that gentleman was on the point of resigning it to its fate.

-

Mr. Pickwick, with his hands in his pockets and his hat cocked completely over his left eye, was leaning against the dresser, shaking his head from side to side, and producing a constant succession of the blandest and most benevolent smiles without being moved thereunto by any discernible cause or pretence whatsoever; old Mr. Wardle, with a highly-inflamed countenance, was grasping the hand of a strange gentleman muttering protestations of eternal friendship; Mr. Winkle, supporting himself by the eight-day clock, was feebly invoking destruction upon the head of any member of the family who should suggest the propriety of his retiring for the night; and Mr. Snodgrass had sunk into a chair, with an expression of the most abject and hopeless misery that the human mind can imagine, portrayed in every lineament of his expressive face. 

'Is anything the matter?' inquired the three ladies.

'Nothing the matter,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'We - we're - all right. - I say, Wardle, we're all right, ain't we?'

'I should think so,' replied the jolly host. - 'My dears, here's my friend Mr. Jingle - Mr. Pickwick's friend, Mr. Jingle, come 'pon - little visit.'

'Is anything the matter with Mr. Snodgrass, Sir?' inquired Emily, with great anxiety.

'Nothing the matter, ma'am,' replied the stranger. 'Cricket dinner - glorious party - capital songs - old port - claret - good - very good - wine, ma'am - wine.'

'It wasn't the wine,' murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. 'It was the salmon.' (Somehow or other, it never is the wine, in these cases.)

-

'Who is Slumkey?' whispered Mr. Tupman.

'I don't know,' replied Mr. Pickwick, in the same tone. 'Hush. Don't ask any questions. It's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do.'

'But suppose there are two mobs?' suggested Mr. Snodgrass.

'Shout with the largest,' replied Mr. Pickwick.

Volumes could not have said more.

-

'Mr. Pickwick, I presume?'

'The same.'

'Allow me, Sir, the honour of grasping your hand. Permit me, Sir, to shake it,' said the grave man.

'Certainly,' said Mr. Pickwick. The stranger shook the extended hand, and then continued.

'We have heard of your fame, Sir. The noise of your antiquarian discussion has reached the ears of Mrs. Leo Hunter - my wife, Sir; I am Mr. Leo Hunter' - the stranger paused, as if he expected that Mr. Pickwick would be overcome by the disclosure; but seeing that he remained perfectly calm, proceeded.

'My wife, Sir - Mrs. Leo Hunter - is proud to number among her acquaintance all those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their works and talents. Permit me, Sir, to place in a conspicuous part of the list the name of Mr. Pickwick, and his brother-members of the club that derives its name from him.'

'I shall be extremely happy to make the acquaintance of such a lady, Sir,' replied Mr. Pickwick.

'You shall make it, Sir,' said the grave man. 'To-morrow morning, Sir, we give a public breakfast - a fête champetre - to a great number of those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their works and talents. Permit Mrs. Leo Hunter, Sir, to have the gratification of seeing you at the Den.'

'With great pleasure,' replied Mr. Pickwick.

'Mrs. Leo Hunter has many of these breakfasts, Sir,' resumed the new acquaintance - '"feasts of reason," Sir, "and flows of soul," as somebody who wrote a sonnet to Mrs. Leo Hunter on her breakfasts, feelingly and originally observed.'

'Was he celebrated for his works and talents?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.

'He was, Sir,' replied the grave man, 'all Mrs. Leo Hunter's acquaintance are; it is her ambition, Sir, to have no other acquaintance.'

'It is a very noble ambition,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'When I inform Mrs. Leo Hunter, that that remark fell from your lips, Sir, she will indeed be proud,' said the grave man. 'You have a gentleman in your train, who has produced some beautiful little poems, I think, Sir.'

'My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a great taste for poetry,' replied Mr. Pickwick.

'So has Mrs. Leo Hunter, Sir. She dotes on poetry, Sir. She adores it; I may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. She has produced some delightful pieces, herself, Sir. You may have met with her "Ode to an expiring Frog," Dir.'

'I don't think I have,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'You astonish me, Sir,' said Mr. Leo Hunter. 'It created an immense sensation. It was signed with an "L" and eight stars, and appeared originally in a Lady's Magazine. It commenced

'Can I view thee panting, lying

On thy stomach, without sighing;

Can I unmoved see thee dying

On a log

Expiring frog!'

'Beautiful!' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Fine,' said Mr. Leo Hunter; 'so simple.'

'Very,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'The next verse is still more touching. Shall I repeat it?'

'If you please,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'It runs thus,' said the grave man, still more gravely.

'Say, have fiends in shape of boys,

With wild halloo, and brutal noise,

Hunted thee from marshy joys,

With a dog,

Expiring frog!'

'Finely expressed,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'All point, Sir,' said Mr. Leo Hunter; 'but you shall hear Mrs. Leo Hunter repeat it. She can do justice to it, Sir. She will repeat it, in character, Sir, to-morrow morning.'

'In character!'

'As Minerva. But I forgot - it's a fancy-dress dejeune.'

'Dear me,' said Mr. Pickwick, glancing at his own figure - 'I can't possibly' -

 -

The jovial party broke up next morning. Breakings-up are capital things in our school-days, but in after life they are painful enough. Death, self-interest, and fortune's changes, are every day breaking up many a happy group, and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls never come back again. We do not mean to say that it was exactly the case in this particular instance; all we wish to inform the reader is, that the different members of the party dispersed to their several homes ...

-

Now, although the warden's room was a very uncomfortable one, being, in every point of decoration and convenience, several hundred degrees inferior to the common infirmary of a county jail, it had at present the merit of being wholly deserted save by Mr. Pickwick himself. So, he sat down at the foot of his little iron bedstead, and began to wonder how much a year the warder made out of the dirty room. Having satisfied himself, by mathematical calculation, that the apartment was about equal in annual value to the freehold of a small street in the suburbs of London, he took to wondering what possible temptation could have induced a dingy-looking fly that was crawling over his pantaloons, to come into a close prison, when he had the choice of so many airy situations - a course of meditation which led him to the irresistible conclusion that the insect was insane. After settling this point, he began to be conscious that he was getting sleepy; whereupon he took his nightcap out of the pocket in which he had had the precaution to stow it in the morning, and, leisurely undressing himself, got into bed and fell asleep.

-

'I takes my determination on principle, Sir,' remarked Sam, 'and you takes yours on the same ground; wich puts me in mind o' the man as killed his-self on principle, wich o' course you've heerd on, Sir.' Mr. Weller paused when he arrived at this point, and cast a comical look at his master out of the corners of his eyes.


'There is no "of course" in the case, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, gradually breaking into a smile, in spite of the uneasiness which Sam's obstinacy had given him. 'The fame of the gentleman in question, never reached my ears.'


'No, Sir!' exclaimed Mr. Weller. 'You astonish me, Sir; he wos a clerk in a gov'ment office, sir.'


'Was he?' said Mr. Pickwick.


'Yes, he wos, Sir,' rejoined Mr. Weller; 'and a wery pleasant gen'l'm'n too - one o' the precise and tidy sort, as puts their feet in little India-rubber fire-buckets wen it's wet weather, and never has no other bosom friends but hare-skins; he saved up his money on principle, wore a clean shirt ev'ry day on principle; never spoke to none of his relations on principle, 'fear they shou'd want to borrow money of him; and wos altogether, in fact, an uncommon agreeable character. He had his hair cut on principle vunce a fortnight, and contracted for his clothes on the economic principle - three suits a year, and send back the old uns. Being a wery reg'lar gen'l'm'n, he din'd ev'ry day at the same place, where it was one-and-nine to cut off the joint, and a wery good one-and-nine's worth he used to cut, as the landlord often said, with the tears a-tricklin' down his face, let alone the way he used to poke the fire in the vinter time, which wos a dead loss o' four-pence ha'penny a day, to say nothin' at all o' the aggrawation o' seein' him do it. So uncommon grand with it too! "Post arter the next gen'l'm'n," he sings out ev'ry day ven he comes in. "See arter the Times, Thomas; let me look at the Mornin' Herald, when it's out o' hand; don't forget to bespeak the Chronicle; and just bring the 'Tizer, vill you:" and then he'd set vith his eyes fixed on the clock, and rush out, just a quarter of a minit 'fore the time to waylay the boy as wos a-comin' in with the evenin' paper, which he'd read with sich intense interest and persewerance as worked the other customers up to the wery confines o' desperation and insanity, 'specially one i-rascible old gen'l'm'n as the vaiter wos always obliged to keep a sharp eye on, at sich times, fear he should be tempted to commit some rash act with the carving-knife. Vell, Sir, here he'd stop, occupyin' the best place for three hours, and never takin' nothin' arter his dinner, but sleep, and then he'd go away to a coffee-house a few streets off, and have a small pot o' coffee and four crumpets, arter wich he'd walk home to Kensington and go to bed. One night he wos took very ill; sends for a doctor; doctor comes in a green fly, with a kind o' Robinson Crusoe set o' steps, as he could let down wen he got out, and pull up arter him wen he got in, to perwent the necessity o' the coachman's gettin' down, and thereby undeceivin' the public by lettin' 'em see that it wos only a livery coat as he'd got on, and not the trousers to match. "Wot's the matter?" says the doctor. "Wery ill," says the patient. "Wot have you been a-eatin' on?" says the doctor. "Roast weal," says the patient. "Wot's the last thing you dewoured?" says the doctor. "Crumpets," says the patient. "That's it!" says the doctor. "I'll send you a box of pills directly, and don't you never take no more of 'em," he says. "No more o' wot?" says the patient - "pills?" "No; crumpets," says the doctor. "Wy?" says the patient, starting up in bed; "I've eat four crumpets, ev'ry night for fifteen year, on principle." "Well, then, you'd better leave 'em off, on principle," says the doctor. "Crumpets is not wholesome, Sir," says the doctor, wery fierce. "But they're so cheap," says the patient, comin' down a little, "and so wery fillin' at the price." "They'd be dear to you, at any price; dear if you wos paid to eat 'em," says the doctor. "Four crumpets a night," he says, "vill do your business in six months!" The patient looks him full in the face, and turns it over in his mind for a long time, and at last he says, "Are you sure o' that 'ere, Sir?" "I'll stake my professional reputation on it," says the doctor. "How many crumpets, at a sittin', do you think 'ud kill me off at once?" says the patient. "I don't know," says the doctor. "Do you think half-a-crown's wurth 'ud do it?" says the patient. "I think it might," says the doctor. "Three shillins' wurth 'ud be sure to do it, I s'pose?" says the patient. "Certainly," says the doctor. "Wery good," says the patient; "good-night." Next mornin' he gets up, has a fire lit, orders in three shillins' wurth o' crumpets, toasts 'em all, eats 'em all, and blows his brains out.'


'What did he do that for?' inquired Mr. Pickwick abruptly; for he was considerably startled by this tragical termination of the narrative.


'Wot did he do it for, Sir?' reiterated Sam. 'Wy, in support of his great principle that crumpets wos wholesome, and to show that he wouldn't be put out of his way for nobody!'


-


Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness, of which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence here. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We, who have no such optical powers, are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them.

The Whitsun Weddings (Philip Larkin)

That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river's level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles island,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.

At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewelry-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochers that

Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafes
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed abroad: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known

Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots. and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
- An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl - and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

from Sohrab and Rustum (Matthew Arnold)

As, in the country, on a morn in June,
When the dew glistens on the pearled ears,
A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy -
So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said,
A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran
Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved.

But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool,
Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,
That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow;
Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass
Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,
Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves
Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries -
In single file they move, and stop their breath,
For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows -
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

from Surprised by Joy, chapter 12, Guns and Good Company (C.S. Lewis)

My first taste of Oxford was comical enough.  I had made no arrangements about quarters and, having no more luggage than I could carry in my hand, I sallied out of the railway station on foot to find either a lodging-house or a cheap hotel; all agog for 'dreaming spires' and 'last enchantments'. My first disappointment at what I saw could be dealt with. Towns always show their worst face to the railway. But as I walked on and on I became more bewildered. Could this succession of mean shops really be Oxford? But I still went on, always expecting the next turn to reveal the beauties, and reflecting that it was a much larger town than I had been led to suppose. Only when it became obvious that there was very little town left ahead of me, that I was in fact getting to open country, did I turn round and look. There behind me, far away, never more beautiful since, was the fabled cluster of spires and towers. I had come out of the station on the wrong side and been all this time walking into what was even then the mean and sprawling suburb of Botley.  I did not see to what extent this little adventure was an allegory of my whole life.

from Daniel Deronda, chapter 17 (George Eliot)

Rowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped, his mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only disguised traces of the seraphic boy 'trailing clouds of glory.' Still, even one who had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at him with slow recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze which Gwendolen chose to call 'dreadful,' though it had really a very mild sort of scrutiny. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches of song, had turned out merely a high barytone; indeed, only to look at his lithe, powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have been enough for an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing tenor such as nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his hands: they are not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem to have only a deprecating touch: they are long, flexible, firmly-grasping hands, such as Titian has painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of refinement with force. And there is something of a likeness, too, between the faces belonging to the hands - in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the perpendicular brow, the calmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer: thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a human dignity which can afford to recognize poor relations.

Advent Calendar (Rowan Williams)

He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

from Pride and Prejudice, chapter 51 (Jane Austen)

Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, ‘Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.’

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.