Dream Life: A Fable of the Seasons

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C. Scribner, 1851 - 286 Seiten

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Seite 35 - The peaches bloom upon the wall, and the plums wear bodices of white. The sparkling oriole picks string for his hammock on the sycamore, and the sparrows twitter in pairs. The old elms throw down their dingy flowers, and color their spray with green ; and the brooks, where you throw your worm or the minnow, float down whole fleets of the crimson blossoms of the maple.
Seite 115 - An old, matronly hen stalks about the yard with a sedate step ; and with quiet self-assurance, she utters an occasional series of hoarse, and heated clucks. A speckled turkey, with an astonished brood at her heels, is eyeing curiously, and with earnest variations of the head, a full-fed cat, that lies curled up, and dozing, upon the floor of the cottage porch. As I sit thus, watching through the interstices of my leafy screen the various images of country life, I hear distant mutterings from beyond...
Seite 36 - But presently, you see across the fields, the dark grey streaks stretching like lines of mists, from the green bosom of the valley, to that spot of sky where the company of clouds is loitering ; and with an easy shifting of the helm, the fleet of swimmers come drifting over you, and drop their burden into the dancing pools, and make the flowers glisten, and the eaves drip with their crystal bounty. The cattle linger...
Seite 41 - But you grow tired of this; you tire even of the swing and of the pranks of Charlie, and you glide away 'into a corner with an old dog's-eared copy of " Robinson Crusoe." And you grow heart and soul into the story, until you tremble for the poor fellow with his guns behind the palisade, and are yourself half dead with fright when you peep cautiously over the hill with your glass and see the cannibals around the fire.
Seite 114 - Here and there a lark, scared from his feeding-place in the grass, soars up, bubbling forth his melody in globules of silvery sound, and settles upon some tall tree, and waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying twigs. I hear, too, a quail piping from the meadow fence, and another trilling his answering whistle from the hills. Nearer by...
Seite 134 - You will learn, that all the traditions so current among very young men that certain great characters have wrought their greatness by an inspiration, as it were, grow out of a sad mistake. And you will further find, when you come to measure yourself with men, that there are no rivals so formi dable as those earnest, determined minds which reckon the value of every hour, and which achieve eminence by persistent application.
Seite 39 - I know no nobler forage ground for a romantic, venturesome, mischievous boy, than the garret of an old family mansion, on a day of storm. It is a perfect field of chivalry. The heavy rafters, the dashing rain, the piles of spare mattresses to carouse upon, the big trunks to hide in, the old white coats and hats hanging in obscure corners, like ghosts — are great!
Seite 38 - But it will not ; for you know that the old roof is strong ; and that it has kept you, and all that love you, for long years from the rain, and from the cold : you know that the hardest storms of winter will only make a little oozing leak, that trickles down the brown stains, — like tears.
Seite 40 - There is great fun in groping through a tall barrel of books and pamphlets, on the look-out for startling pictures ; and there are chestnuts in the garret drying, which you have discovered on a ledge of the chimney ; and you slide a few into your pocket, and munch them quietly, — giving now and then one to Nelly, and begging her to keep silent, — for you have a great fear of its being forbidden fruit. Old family garrets have their stock, as I said, of castaway clothes of twenty years gone by...
Seite 42 - You dream what a nice thing it would be for you to slip away some pleasant morning, — not to York, as young Crusoe did, but to New York, — and take passage as a sailor ; and how, if they knew you were going, there would be such a world of good-byes ; and how, if they did not know it, there would be such a world of wonder ! And then the sailor's dress would be altogether such a jaunty affair ; and it would be such rare sport to lie off upon the yards far aloft, as you have seen sailors in pictures,...

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