There is something to be said for losing one's possessions, after nothing can be done about it. I had loved my Nanking home and th...e little treasures it had contained, the lovely garden I had made, my life with friends and students. Well, that was over. I had nothing at all now except the old clothes I stood in. I should have felt sad, and I was quite shocked to realize that I did not feel sad at all. On the contrary, I had a lively sense of adventure merely at being alive and free, even of possessions. No one expected anything of me. I had no obligations, no duties, no tasks. I was nothing but a refugee, someone totally different from the busy young woman I had been.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court, Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,... Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig On the charge of deserting its sty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The reasons why I did not foreacquaint you with it (to deal with the same plainness that I have used) were these. I knew my presen...t estate less than fit for her, I knew (yet I know not why) that I stood not right in your opinion. I knew that to have given any intimation of it had been to impossibilitate the whole matter.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Substantial pieces of goods [were] very offensive to her Ladyship's sight. They, for their clumsiness, were discarded, and in thei...r room were placed China images and all manner of Chinese figures: some that stood still and some that, by pulling a string, might be put into such insignificant shakings and motions as made the heads of the beholders giddy.... And thus was this noble ancient castle, which in its old form struck the imagination both with dignity and simplicity, filled with such trifling gewgaws that it was dangerous to move, lest some of the clockwork trumpery should be thrown down and put out of joint.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; when his lamp shone over my head, and by his lig...ht I walked through darkness; when I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent; when the Almighty was still with me, when my children were around me; when my steps were washed with milk, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil! When I went out to the gate of the city, when I took my seat in the square, the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose up and stood...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and... the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I ... walked to the Abbey of Holyroodhouse once to the Palace itself, once to the crown of Scotland above the gate in front, and o...nce to the venerable old Chapel. I next stood in the court before the Palace, and bowed thrice to Arthur Seat, that lofty romantic mountain on which I have so often strayed in my days of youth and felt the raptures of a soul filled with ideas of the magnificence of God and his creation. Having thus gratified my agreeable whim and superstitious humour, I felt a warm glow of satisfaction.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise, And the door stood open at our feast,... When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes, And a man with his back to the East.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He holds him with his glittering eye-- The Wedding Guest stood still,... And listens like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have crossed the Andes, ascended Tenerife, entered Japan, "done" Niagara and the Thousand Isles, drunk delight of battle with o...ur peers (at shop windows), sat at the councils of the mighty, grown familiar with kings, emperors and queens, prima donnas, pets of the ballet, and "well graced actors." Ghosts have we seen and have not trembled; stood before royalty and have not uncovered; and looked, in short, through a three-inch lens at every single pomp and vanity of this wicked but beautiful world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »