water

The four little reception-rooms, or boudoirs, were so many cabinets for treasures, and on the night of the ball, like the rest of the rooms on this floor, were entirely without further adornment; only the white marble of the spiral stair was festooned with crimson roses; and the narrow hall that led from the rotunda to the new ballroom was dressed in imitation of a long arbor of grape-vines, and hung with clusters of hot-house grapes and Chinese lanterns. The ballroom had been built out from the back of the house upon the steep drop of the hill, and as even its graduated foundation did not lift it to the level of the first floor, it was reached by a short flight of steps. For three months Mrs. Hofer's judicious hints had excited the curiosity of the town, and all that were not bedridden had presented themselves at as early an hour as self-respect would permit. Mrs. Hofer, to use her own phrase, had "turned herself loose," on this room, and even her husband, who had gasped at the sum total, indulgent as he was, admitted to-night that "she knew what she was about." The immense room was built to simulate a patio in Spain. The domed roof, in the blaze of light below, looked to be the dim blue vault of the night sky. The gallery that encircled the room was divided into balconies, and from them depended Gobelin tapestries, Eastern rugs, silken shawls--yellow embroidered with red, blue embroidered with white--after the manner of Spain on festa days. The background of the gallery was a mass of tropical plants alternating

Gertrude Atherton
Ancestors

Joe did not go back to the house with the rest of the family. Instead, he struck out across the fields away from them. He climbed the back boundary fence and was soon walking up to his knees in grass and weeds. The air was hot and sticky and heavily charged with a shimmering white water vapour. There were a few sluggish clouds with sombre centres hanging about the valley to the southwest, and there was a drone and zip of flying creatures in swarms above the drying weeds and stubble. Coming to a large oak tree standing solitary in that wasting field, he threw himself face downward on the ground in its shadow, careless that the grass was scant, and that his bed was scratchy. For a moment he lay in utter relaxation, caring for and observing nothing. And then, the sharp edge of his fatigue being broken, he slowly turned on his side and leaned his head on his palm, his elbow resting on the ground. It was a barren prospect that stretched out before him: lazy, shiftless land clear over the brow of the hill that sloped away to the house. The Fawcette place had not been worked to capacity for years, and there it lay, the waste of Mr. Mosby's opportunity. Tiny creatures swarmed in the grass. Joe could see them scurrying up and down the withered and drying stalks. A little crowd of gnats was hovering about his head and occasionally one would light upon his face and stick there dejectedly. Above the grass, against the blue of the sky beyond, he could see the shimmering waves hang tremulous like the air above a hot wood-stove in winter, and

George Looms
Stubble

clothes fitted him, and he was as genteel-looking as any man in the audience. The slouchy appearance which he is said to have presented on other occasions was conspicuously absent here. As he stood before the vast audience, towering above every person around him, he was the centre of attraction. I can never forget how he looked, as he cast his eyes over the crowd before beginning his argument. His face was long and sallow; high cheek bones; large, deep-set eyes, of a grayish-brown color, shaded by heavy eyebrows; high but not broad forehead; large, well-formed head, covered with an abundance of coarse black hair, worn rather long, through which he frequently passed his fingers; arms and legs of unusual length; head inclined slightly forward, which made him appear stoop-shouldered. His features betrayed neither excitement nor anxiety. They were calm and fixed. In short, his appearance was that of a man who felt the responsibility of his position and was determined to acquit himself to the best of his ability. I do not remember the points of his speech; but his manner was so peculiar, so different from that of other orators whom I have heard, that I can never forget it. He spoke for almost two hours, entirely without notes and with an eloquence that I have never heard surpassed. He was all life, all motion; every muscle and fibre of his body seemed brought into requisition. His voice was clear, distinct, and well modulated. Every word was clean-cut and exactly suited to its place. At times he would stoop over until his

Egyptian painters laid on broad, flat, uniform washes of colour; they did not paint in our sense of the term; they illuminated. Just as in drawing they reduced everything to lines, and almost wholly suppressed the internal modelling, so in adding colour they still further simplified their subject by merging all varieties of tone, and all play of light and shadow, in one uniform tint. Egyptian painting is never quite true, and never quite false. Without pretending to the faithful imitation of nature, it approaches nature as nearly as it may; sometimes understating, sometimes exaggerating, sometimes substituting ideal or conventional renderings for strict realities. Water, for instance, is always represented by a flat tint of blue, or by blue covered with zigzag lines in black. The buff and bluish hues of the vulture are translated into bright red and vivid blue. The flesh-tints of men are of a dark reddish brown, and the flesh-tints of women are pale yellow. The colours conventionally assigned to each animate and inanimate object were taught in the schools, and their use handed on unchanged from generation to generation. Now and then it happened that a painter more daring than his contemporaries ventured to break with tradition. In the Sixth Dynasty tombs at Deir el Gebrawî, there are instances where the flesh tint of the women is that conventionally devoted to the depiction of men. At Sakkarah, under the Fifth Dynasty, and at Abû Simbel, under the Nineteenth Dynasty, we find men with skins as yellow as

We again remounted and proceeded on our way, which, for a considerable distance, lay along the margin of the stream, which now fell in small cataracts, now brawled over stones, and at other times ran dark and silent through deep pools overhung with tall willows,—pools which seemed to abound with the finny tribe, for large trout frequently sprang from the water, catching the brilliant fly which skimmed along its deceitful surface.  The scene was delightful.  The sun was rolling high in the firmament, casting from its orb of fire the most glorious rays, so that the atmosphere was flickering with their splendour; but their fierceness was either warded off by the shadow of the trees, or rendered innocuous by the refreshing coolness which rose from the waters, or by the gentle breezes which murmured at intervals over the meadows, “fanning the cheek or raising the hair” of the wanderer.  The hills gradually receded, till at last we entered a plain where tall grass was waving, and mighty chestnut trees, in full blossom, spread out their giant and umbrageous boughs.  Beneath many stood cars, the tired oxen prostrate on the ground, the cross-bar of the pole which they support pressing heavily on their heads, whilst their drivers were either employed in cooking, or were enjoying a delicious _siesta_ in the grass and shade.  I went up to one of the largest of these groups and demanded of the individuals whether they were in need of the Testament of Jesus Christ.  They stared at one another, and then at me, till at last a young man, who was dangling a

George Borrow
The Bible in Spain

the chest, with small wings like a Grebe, and long, stiff tails like a Cormorant--the latter, being carried underwater as a rudder, is not visible when the bird is swimming. The enormously swollen bill of the drake--pale waxen blue in colour--completed as singular a picture of a feathered fowl as the writer ever came across: they were in fact no less remarkable in form and colour, now we had them in hand, than they had at first appeared in the water. The head and neck of the drake were jet black, with white face and cheeks: otherwise their whole plumage was dark ferruginous (not white below, as represented in "Bree") and with a silky, grebe-like sheen.

Abel Chapman
Wild Spain (España agreste)

"What a glorious evening!" were Will's first thoughts.  The birds sang around him, the sea lisped its soft whispers on the sea below, the song of a fisherman out on the bay came up on the breeze, the rabbits scudded across his path, and the seagulls floated slowly above him. All the sullenness went out of his face, giving way to a look of pleased surprise, as out of the carpet of gorgeous colouring spread before him rose suddenly the vision of a girl.  It was Morva who came towards him, her hair glistening in the sunshine, her blue eyes dancing with the light of health and happiness.  Behind a rising knoll stood her foster-mother's cottage, almost hidden by the surrounding gorse and heather, for, according to the old Welsh custom, it had been built in a hollow scooped out behind a natural elevation, which protected it from the strong sea wind; in fact, there was little of it visible except its red chimney-pot, from which generally curled the blue smoke of the furze and dried ferns burning on the bare earthen floor below.

Allen Raine
Garthowen

I write this a Gata--a name famous in the poetical, the classical, the military story of Italy, from the day of neas, from whom it received its appellation, down to the annals of the late war. On the site of our inn, (the Albergo di Cicerone,) stood Cicero's Formian Villa; and in an adjoining grove he was murdered in his litter by the satellites of the Triumviri, as he attempted to escape. I stood to-night on a little terrace, which hung over an orange grove, and enjoyed a scene which I would paint, if words were forms, and hues, and sounds--not else. A beautiful bay, enclosed by the Mola di Gata, on one side, and the Promontory of Misenum on the other: the sky studded with stars and reflected in a sea as blue as itself--and so glassy and unruffled, it seemed to slumber in the moonlight: now and then the murmur of a wave, not hoarsely breaking on rock and shingles, but kissing the turfy shore, where oranges and myrtles grew down to the water edge. These, and the remembrances connected with all, and a mind to think, and a heart to feel, and thoughts both of pain and pleasure mingling to render the effect more deep and touching.--Why should I write this? O surely I need not fear that I shall _forget_!

Anna Brownell Jameson
The Diary of an Ennuye

Rear-admiral Magon immediately ordered the fatal movement commanded by the Emperor; but hardly had the first dispositions been made when the sea became frightful to behold, the sky, covered with black clouds, was furrowed with lightning, the thunder roared incessantly, and the wind increased to a gale. In fact, what Admiral Bruix had foreseen occurred; a frightful tempest scattered the boats in every direction, and rendered their condition desperate. The Emperor, anxious and uneasy, with lowered head and crossed arms, was striding up and down the shore, when suddenly terrible cries were heard. More than twenty gunboats, filled with soldiers and sailors, had just been driven on the shore; and the poor unfortunates who manned them, struggling against furious waves, were imploring help which none could venture to render. The Emperor was deeply touched by this sight, while his heart was torn by the lamentations of an immense crowd which the tempest had collected on the shore and the adjoining cliffs. He beheld his generals and officers stand in shuddering horror around him, and wishing to set an example of self-sacrifice, in spite of all efforts made to restrain him, threw himself into a lifeboat, saying, "Let me alone; let me alone! They must be gotten out of there." In an instant the boat filled with water, the waves dashed over it, and the Emperor was submerged, one wave stronger than the others threw his Majesty on the shore, and his hat was swept off.

Constant
The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete

Of extended surfaces of water, as rendered by Turner, the Loch Katrine and Derwent-water, of the Illustrations to Scott, and the Loch Lomond, vignette in Rogers's Poems, are characteristic instances. The first of these gives us the most distant part of the lake entirely under the influence of a light breeze, and therefore entirely without reflections of the objects on its borders; but the whole near half is untouched by the wind, and on that is cast the image of the upper part of Ben-Venue and of the islands. The second gives us the surface, with just so much motion upon it as to prolong, but not to destroy, the reflections of the dark woods,--reflections only interrupted by the ripple of the boat's wake. And the third gives us an example of the whole surface so much affected by ripple as to bring into exercise all those laws which we have seen so grossly violated by Canaletto. We see in the nearest boat that though the lines of the gunwale are much blacker and more conspicuous than that of the cutwater, yet the gunwale lines, being nearly horizontal, have no reflection whatsoever; while the line of the cutwater, being vertical, has a distinct reflection of three times its own length. But even these tremulous reflections are only visible as far as the islands; beyond them, as the lake retires into distance, we find it receives only the reflection of the gray light from the clouds, and runs in one flat white field up between the hills; and besides all this, we have another phenomenon, quite new, given to us,--the brilliant gleam

John Ruskin
Modern Painters Volume I (of V)

When the party reached Seascape the summer clouds that floated over the ocean were beginning to glow with the warmth of coming sunset. The sea lay so tranquil that the flash of the waves on the pebbly shore sounded like the rythmic accompaniment to the beautiful vision of earth and sky, and the boom of the water against the cliffs beyond came now and then, accentuating this like the beat of a heavy drum muffled or distant. The mansion at Seascape with its forty rooms, although new, was so substantial and stately that as they drove up the avenue Lady Dacre, accustomed to grandeur, ran her quick eye over its ample dimensions, its gambrel roof, its immense chimneys, its generous hall door, and turning to Archdale, without her condescension, she asked him how he had contrived to combine newness and dignity.

Various
The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1

Not a human creature escaped that night of wroth except the shepherd boy and the damsel he carried in his arms. Every time the waters reached his heels they reared up like great white horses and fell back, thus sparing him. Three times did he look back at happenings in the town of the Seven Sisters. The first time he looked back the water was up to the last windows of houses that were three storeys high. All the belongings of the householders were floating about, and people were sinking through the water, their lives going out as swiftly as twinkling bubbles. In an attic window he saw a young girl loosen her hair, she was singing a song, preparing to meet death as if she were making ready for a lover. A man at the top of a ladder was gulping whiskey from a bottle, and when the water sprang at his throat he went down with a mad defiant cry. A child ran out an open window, golden locks dancing about its pretty head, as if it were running into a garden. There was another little bubble in the moonlight.... The second time the shepherd boy looked back the swallows were flying from their nests under the eaves of the houses, for the water was now lapping them. An old woman was hobbling across a roof on crutches. Men were drawing their bodies out of the chimney-pots. A raft on which the Keeper's guard had put out slowly, like a live thing lazily yawning and turning over on its side, sent them all into the common doom. A man with a bag of gold clutched in his hand, stood dizzily on the high gable of a bank, then, with a scream, tottered and

Arrangements completed, Rocjean ordered more wine; and then the artist in leather ordered more; then Caper's turn came. After this, the party--which had been gradually growing jolly and jollier, would have danced, had they not all had a holy horror of the prison of San Angelo. The married sister, Dominica, was a full-blooded _Trasteverina_, in her gala dress, and had one of those beautiful-shaped heads that Caper could only compare to a quail's; her jet-black hair, smoothed close to her head, was gathered in a large roll that fell low on her neck behind, and held by a silver _spadina_ or pin, that, if occasion demanded, would make a serviceable stiletto; her full face was brown, while the red blood shone through her cheeks, and her lips were full and ripe. Her eyes of deep gray, shaded with long black lashes, sparkled with light when she was aroused. Her sisters resembled her strikingly, except Rita, the youngest, whose face was of that singularly delicate hue of white, the color of the magnolia-flower, as one of our American writers has it; or like the white of a boiled egg next to the yolk, as Caper expressed it. Be this as it may, there was something very attractive in this pallor, since it was accompanied by an _embonpoint_ indicating any thing but romantic meagerness of constitution.

The mists of the early morning hung over the ocean, but not with sufficient density to obscure altogether the outline of the land, as her Majesty's frigate _Plantagenet_ was entering the Boca Navios, or ship channel, one of the Dragon's Mouths which lead from the north into the Gulf of Paria, between the island of Trinidad and the mainland of South America.  Captain Hemming stood, speaking-trumpet in hand, conning the ship; the crew were at their stations; hands in the chains, ever and anon, as they hove the lead, in deep, sonorous voices shouting out the depth of water; every one was on the alert, for the currents were uncertain and the wind baffling.  As the sun rose the silvery mist seemed to be drawn up like a curtain, exposing a magnificent spectacle; islands of fantastic shapes rising from the calm, blue water, clothed to their summits with mighty trees, of varied hues, growing out of the crevices of the rocks.  Here, lofty cliffs; there, some deep bay, with plantations and cottages beyond; or a shady valley, the fit abode of peace and contentment, as Adair, who was just then in a sentimental mood, observed; now in a wilder, more open spot were seen the huts of a whaling establishment; and then, further on, open glades and grassy enclosures; while on the port side towered up to the clear, bright sky the lofty ridge-like mountains of Trinidad itself.  The breeze freshening, at length the handsome capital of the island, Port of Spain, on the shores of its wide bay, opened out to view; its broad streets

W.H.G. Kingston
The Three Lieutenants

The sun shone brightly out of a deep blue sky.  His rays glanced on the axes of several sturdy men, who with shirt sleeves tucked up and handkerchiefs round their waists, were hewing away lustily at some tall pine-trees.  A few had already fallen before their strokes, making a small clearing in the thick forest.  Through the trees the glittering water of a lake could be seen, but on every other side the thick forest alone stood up like a dark wall.  Yet all that thick underwood and those tall trees must be cut down and cleared away before the newly arrived settlers would find means of living.  It was enough to try the bold hearts of the men as they looked round and saw the work before them. Not an inch of ground turned up, nor a hut built, and winter not so very far-off either.  Yet it must be done, and could be done, for like work had been done over and over again in the country.  The ground rose at first gently and then steeply from the lake, while the splashing sound of a stream on one side gave promise of good water-power for the new settlement.  There were not only firs but many hard-wood trees.  Such are those which shed their leaves, maple, birch, oak, beech, and others, all destined soon to fall before the sturdy backwoodsman's axe.

W.H.G. Kingston
Taking Tales

Jinaban laughed fiercely, and his white teeth flashed from his black-bearded lips; he slipped some cartridges into the rifle. He waited till the woman was within ten yards of him, then raised the weapon and shot her dead. And now, his tiger nature aroused to the full, he sprang into the middle of the village square of Ailap, and began firing at every person he saw, sparing neither age nor sex. His second brother, Ra, a courageous young man, seizing the only weapon available--a seaman's cutlass--rushed forth from his house and, calling upon Jinaban to lay down his weapon, advanced towards him. Pretending to consent--for a cartridge had jammed and the rifle would not work--Jinaban held out the butt to Ra in token of surrender; then the moment Ra grasped it, he sprang at his throat and bore him to the ground, and, tearing the cutlass from his hand, he plunged it through and through the prostrate man's body. Then, with a savage threat against the whole of the murdered men's families, he turned and fled towards the beach. Dragging a light canoe down into the water, he sprang into it, and pushed off just as Palmer appeared on the scene, and, raising his revolver, fired six shots at the escaping murderer. None of the shots, however, took effect, and Jinaban, with an oath of vengeance against the white man, paddled swiftly away and reached the low, densely wooded and uninhabited island on the western side of the lagoon.

Louis Becke
Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories

But where, in that translation, would be the gold braided red or blue jackets of the British army and navy which lend their lustre and color here to the veranda groups? Where should one get the house walls of whitewashed stone and the garden walls which everywhere glow in the sun, and belt in little spaces full of roses and lilies? These things must come from some other association, and in the case of him who here confesses, the lustrous uniforms and the glowing walls rise from waters as far away in time as in space, and a long-ago apparition of Venetian Junes haunts the coral shore. (They are beginning to say the shore is not coral; but no matter.) To be sure, the white roofs are not accounted for in this visionary presence; and if one may not relate them to the snowfalls of home winters, then one must frankly own them absolutely tropical, together with the green-pillared and green-latticed galleries. They at least suggest the tropical scenery of Prue and I as one remembers seeing it through Titbottom's spectacles; and yet, if one supplies roofs of brown-red tiles, it is all Venetian enough, with the lagoon-like expanses that lend themselves to the fond effect. It is so Venetian, indeed, that it wants but a few silent gondolas and noisy gondoliers, in place of the dark, taciturn oarsmen of the clumsy native boats, to complete the coming and going illusion; and there is no good reason why the rough little isles that fill the bay should not call themselves respectively San Giorgio and San Clemente, and Sant' Elena and San

William Dean Howells
Short Stories and Essays

he noticed that all the persons in it treated Mikhalevitch like an old friend. The performance on the stage ceased to interest Lavretzky; Motchaloff himself, although that evening he was "in high feather," did not produce upon him the customary impression. In one very pathetic passage, Lavretzky involuntarily glanced at his beauty: she was bending her whole body forward, her cheeks were aflame; under the influence of his persistent gaze, her eyes, which were riveted on the stage, turned slowly, and rested upon him.... All night long, those eyes flitted before his vision. At last, the artificially erected dam had given way: he trembled and burned, and on the following day he betook himself to Mikhalevitch. From him he learned, that the beauty's name was Varvara Pavlovna Korobyn; that the old man and woman who had sat with her in the box were her father and mother, and that he himself, Mikhalevitch, had made their acquaintance a year previously, during his stay in the suburbs of Moscow, "on contract service" (as tutor) with Count N. The enthusiast expressed himself in the most laudatory manner concerning Varvara Pavlovna--"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, with the impetuous harmony in his voice which was peculiar to him,--"that young girl is an amazing, a talented being, an artist in the genuine sense of the word, and extremely amiable to boot."--Perceiving from Lavretzky's question what an impression Varvara Pavlovna had produced upon him, he himself proposed to introduce him to her, adding that he was quite at home in

Ivan Turgenieff
A Nobleman's Nest

The stranger, however, is apt to leave Memphis with one charming recollection of the place--the remembrance of the sunset scene from the bluffs across the river over Arkansas. I do not think that any part of the world can offer a more unspeakably beautiful spectacle to the traveller than what he may witness any fair evening from those rugged old bluffs at Memphis. The first time I saw it the day had been perfectly bright and clear,--the blue of the sky was unclouded by the least fleecy stain of white cloud; and the sun descended in the west,--not in a yellow haze, or a crimson fog, but with the splendour of his fiery glory almost undimmed. He seemed to leave no trace of his bright fires behind him; and the sky-blue began to darken into night-purple from the east almost immediately. I thought at first it was one of the least romantic sunsets I had ever seen. It was not until the stars were out, and the night had actually fallen, that I beheld the imperial magnificence of that sunset.

George M. Gould
Concerning Lafcadio Hearn

The scene was familiar enough; and yet, this morning, how different it all seemed! The act, with its daring, tinted everything with new strange hues; affecting the individual with a sort of bruised feeling just below the pit of the stomach, that was intensified whenever his thoughts flew back to the ink-stained smelly schoolroom. And could this be really me? or was I only contemplating, from the schoolroom aforesaid, some other jolly young mutineer, faring forth under the genial sun? Anyhow, here was the friendly well, in its old place, half-way up the lane. Hither the yoke-shouldering village-folk were wont to come to fill their clinking buckets; when the drippings made worms of wet in the thick dust of the road. They had flat wooden crosses inside each pail, which floated on the top and (we were instructed) served to prevent the water from slopping over. We used to wonder by what magic this strange principle worked, and who first invented the crosses, and whether he got a peerage for it. But indeed the well was a centre of mystery, for a hornet's nest was somewhere hard by, and the very thought was fearsome. Wasps we knew well and disdained, storming them in their fastnesses. But these great Beasts, vestured in angry orange, three stings from which--so 'twas averred--would kill a horse, these were of a different kidney, and their dreadful drone suggested prudence and retreat. At this time neither villagers nor hornets encroached on the stillness: lessons, apparently, pervaded all nature. So, after dabbling awhile in

Kenneth Grahame
The Golden Age

I looked at her again an instant. "You did n't come to Europe to listen," I said. "You came to see!" But now I was sure her cousin would come back; since he had something disagreeable to say to her, he certainly would turn up. We sat a while longer, and I asked her about her plans of travel She had them on her fingers' ends, and she told over the names with a kind of solemn distinctness: from Paris to Dijon and to Avignon, from Avignon to Marseilles and the Cornice road; thence to Genoa, to Spezia, to Pisa, to Florence, to Home. It apparently had never occurred to her that there could be the least incommodity in her travelling alone; and since she was unprovided with a companion I of course scrupulously abstained from disturbing her sense of security. At last her cousin came back. I saw him turn towards us out of a side street, and from the moment my eyes rested upon him I felt that this was the bright American art-student. He wore a slouch hat and a rusty black velvet jacket, such as I had often encountered in the Rue Bonaparte. His shirt-collar revealed the elongation of a throat which, at a distance, was not strikingly statuesque. He was tall and lean; he had red hair and freckles. So much I had time to observe while he approached the _cafe_, staring at me with natural surprise from under his umbrageous coiffure. When he came up to us I immediately introduced myself to him as an old acquaintance of Miss Spencer. He looked at me hard with a pair of little red eyes, then he made me a solemn bow in the French fashion, with his

Henry James
Four Meetings

The nights, although warm, are delightfully clear and serene at this season. Objects may be clearly distinguished at the distance of several hundred yards, so that one may even shoot by moonlight. The months of June and July offer very little variation in the weather or temperature. In August a suffocating heat reigns throughout the day, and at night it is useless to seek for coolness; a faint zephyr is succeeded by a calm of several hours. The atmosphere is heavy and oppressive, and the body, weakened by perspiration, becomes languid; the appetite fails, and the mosquitos, buzzing about the ears by day and night, perplex and annoy by their stings, while the fevers of the tropics attack Europeans with sudden and irresistible violence. This is the most sickly season for the European. The thermometer frequently exceeds 90 deg. The clouds exhibit a menacing appearance, portending the approach of the heavy autumnal rains, which pour down like a deluge. About the middle of September it appears as if all the vapors of the ocean had accumulated in one point of the heavens. The rain comes down like an immense quantity of water poured through a sieve; it excludes from the view every surrounding object, and in half an hour the whole surface of the earth becomes an immense sheet of water. The rivers are swollen and overflow their banks, the low lands are completely inundated, and the smallest brooks become deep and rapid torrents.

But the club is philosophic. One Adventure is very nearly as good as another, and they trod ashore at Hoboken with light hearts. It was a day of tender and untroubled sunshine. They had a queer sensation of being in foreign lands. Indeed, the tall tragic funnels of the _Leviathan_ and her motionless derelict masts cast a curious shadow of feeling over that region. For the great ship, though blameless herself, seems a thing of shame, a remembrance of days and deeds that soiled the simple creed of the sea. Her great shape and her majestic hull, pitiably dingy and stark, are yet plainly conscious of sin. You see it in every line of her as she lies there, with the attitude of a great dog beaten and crouching. You wonder how she would behave if she were towed out on the open bright water of the river, under that clear sky, under the eyes of other ships going about their affairs with the self-conscious rectitude and pride that ships have. For ships are creatures of intense caste and self-conscious righteousness. They rarely forgive a fallen sister--even when she has fallen through no fault of her own. Observe the _Nieuw Amsterdam_ as she lies, very solid and spick, a few piers above. Her funnel is gay with bright green stripes; her glazed promenade deck is white and immaculate. But, is there not just a faint suggestion of smugness in her mien? She seems thanking the good old Dutch Deity of cleanliness and respectability that she herself is not like this poor trolloping giantess, degraded from the

Christopher Morley
Plum Pudding

The head was treated in the same way; and a number of slices being cut off the body, the remainder was thrown overboard.  Murray, wondering what the hubbub was about, had come on deck, and was an amused spectator of the scene.  The men no longer thought of the heat, and, in spite of it, regaled themselves heartily on shark-steaks at dinner.  The capture of the shark, too, brought them good luck, they declared; for a favourable breeze shortly afterwards sprang up, and held till the northern coast of the South American continent was sighted.  Before, however, Carthagena, the port at which Murray had been directed to call, first could be made, it again fell calm.  He felt the delay very trying. He had been eagerly hoping to get in by the evening, to ascertain if anything had been heard of the _Sarah Jane_, and now another whole day or more might pass before he could gain any information.  The coast lay in sight, its ranges of light-blue mountains looking like clouds, rising above the horizon but proving that they were mountains by never altering their shape or position.  Higson whistled as energetically as usual, but not a catspaw played over the surface of the mirror-like sea, and not an inch nearer the shore did the brig move during the day.  The night passed by, and the hot sun rose once more out of the still slumbering ocean.  The day wore on, but no breeze came.  The men, of course, were not idle.  Murray had from the first exercised them at their guns, and especially in the use of the long one.  He remembered the advice Admiral

W.H.G. Kingston
The Three Lieutenants

The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little boy, seeing us lingering outside the church of S. Chiara, asked whether we should not like to view the body of the saint. This privilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was only necessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half an hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face (forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as though the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Her closed eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. Catherine borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarely seen anything which surprised and touched me more. The religious earnestness of the young custode, the hushed adoration of the country-folk who had silently assembled round us, intensified the sympathy-inspiring beauty of the slumbering girl. Could Julia,

John Symonds
Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete

_March 7._ A strange and tragic affair last night. The heat being severe, I left my tent about midnight and went down to the dock where my little sailboat lay, with the object of cooling myself on the water. There was a hot land breeze; I sailed out into the bay and cruised north along the coves which I have wired. As I rounded a little rocky point I was surprised to see in the moonlight, very near, a steam yacht at anchor, carrying no lights. The longer I looked at her the more certain I became that I was gazing at the Imperial yacht. I had no idea what the yacht might be doing here; I ran my sailboat close under the overhanging rocks and anchored. Then I saw a small boat in the moonlight, pulling from the yacht toward shore, where the crescent cove had already been thoroughly staked and the bottom closely covered with barbed wire as far as the edge of the deep channel which curves in here like a scimitar.

Robert W. Chambers
The Dark Star

He eats man, as he eats anything else eatable because in the water man is easily caught, and not from natural depravity or an acquired taste begetting a decided preference for human flesh. All natives of shores infested by sharks despise him and his alleged man-eating propensities, knowing that a very feeble splashing will suffice to frighten him away even if ever so hungry. Demerara River literally swarms with sharks, yet I have often seen a negro, clad only in a beaming smile, slip into its muddy waters, and, after a few sharp blows with his open hand upon the surface, calmly swim down to the bottom, clear a ship's anchor, or do whatever job was required, coming up again as leisurely as if in a swimming-bath. A similar disregard of the dangerous attributes awarded by popular consent to the shark may be witnessed everywhere among the people who know him best. The cruelties perpetrated upon sharks by seamen generally are the result of ignorance and superstition combined, the most infernal forces known to humanity. What would be said at home of such an act, if it could be witnessed among us, as the disembowelling of a tiger, say, and then letting him run in that horrible condition somewhere remote from the possibility of retaliating upon his torturers? Yet that is hardly comparable with a similar atrocity performed upon a shark, because he will live hours to the tiger's minutes in such a condition.

Two thirds of the national road between Tokio and Nikko is lined on either side by large and ancient cedars, so thickly set that both body and roots, in many instances, have mingled and become one. These trees, completely overarching the narrow road, form a welcome shade, and are also very ornamental, with their straight shafts and thick foliage. The first half of the distance to Nikko is perfectly level, in fact one vast rice field. The journey was divided by stopping at Utsonomiga, where we passed the night in a native tea-house. Our sleeping arrangements were very simple. A Japanese bed consists of a thin cotton mattress spread upon the floor, and a similar article with big sleeves for the arms, which forms the covering. The pillow is a block of wood, for which the experienced traveler usually substitutes his valise. There is not much privacy afforded by the paper screens which divide the several apartments, and which prove to be no obstacle to conversation, if one desires a colloquy with his neighbor. Our night-lamp was a floating wick, in a cup of cocoanut oil, placed in a square paper lantern on legs. The morning toilet was made at a basin of water in the open court-yard. There are no chairs, tables, or wash-stands, unless you improvise them. However, we had a very good night's rest, and started off bright and early in the morning for Nikko.

Maturin Murray Ballou
Due West

... There is the quiet of the mountains; only slightly broken at intervals of an hour or so when a caravan passes, but sometimes these pass perfectly silently without stopping; barefooted carriers with their merchandise slung across the shoulder on bamboos, and sometimes with ponies, and bells jingling cheerily. Just now, one has come from the China frontier, some ten carriers wearing pointed straw hats several feet wide. They unlimber and drink a little water from a spring that spouts out of the side of a hill through a bamboo; they are quiet people--their voices and the gurgling of the spring just reach us. Then from Burmah side come women carriers, Shans, I think, old and young, in dark blue clothes, short petticoats and tall turbans; they come sturdily up the hill and joke with the Chinese coolies as they pass without stopping down the zigzag path into the bamboos, by the path our ponies and people have already followed. But here is movement! and a cheery jingling!--a whole string of Chinese pack ponies, eighty at least, coming up from Bhamo, each laden with bales, a Chinaman to every three ponies. At the end stalks a lean Indian. I suppose he owns the show--his wife follows, a very black thing, a Madrassee, to judge by her not very white and inelegant hangings. They drink and spit at the spring, and he sees us and salaams, and looks in to see the durwan, who is one of his countrymen.

William G. Burn Murdoch
From Edinburgh to India & Burmah

Constantinople and the Bosphorus are no exceptions to this general rule. People who live there are sometimes well and sometimes ill, sometimes rich and sometimes poor, sometimes in love with themselves and sometimes in love with each other. A grave Persian carpet merchant sits smoking on the quay of Buyukdere. He sees them all go by, from the gay French secretary of embassy, puffing at a cigarette as he hurries from one visit to the next, to the neat and military German diplomat, landing from his steam launch on his return from the palace; from the devil-may-care English youth in white flannel to the graceful Turkish adjutant on his beautiful Arab horse; from the dark-eyed Armenian lady, walking slowly by the water's edge, to the terrifically arrayed little Greek dandy, with a spotted waistcoat and a thunder-and-lightning tie. He sees them all: the Levantine with the weak and cunning face, the swarthy Kurdish porter, the gorgeously arrayed Dalmatian embassy servant, the huge, fair Turkish waterman in his spotless white dress, and the countless veiled Turkish women from the small harems of the little town, shuffling along in silence, or squatted peacefully upon a jutting point of the pier, veiled in _yashmaks_, the more transparent as they have the more beauty to show or the less ugliness to conceal. The carpet merchant sees them all, and sits like Patience upon a monumental heap of stuffs, waiting for customers and smoking his water-pipe. His eyes are greedy and his fingers are long, but the peace of a superior

F. Marion Crawford
Paul Patoff

How white the old church looked, and how green the blinds! It must have been painted very lately: that meant that the parish was fairly prosperous. There were new shutters in the belfry tower, too; he remembered the former open space and the rusty bell, and he liked the change. Did the chimney use to be in that corner? No; but his father had always said it would have drawn better if it had been put there in the beginning. New shingles within a year: that was evident to a practiced eye. He wondered if anything had been done to the inside of the building, but he must wait until the morrow to see, for, of course, the doors would be locked. No; the one at the right side was ajar. He opened it softly and stepped into the tiny square entry that he recalled so well--the one through which the Sunday-School children ran out to the steps from their catechism, apparently enjoying the sunshine after a spell of orthodoxy; the little entry where the village girls congregated while waiting for the last bell to ring--they made a soft blur of pink and blue and buff, a little flutter of curls and braids and fans and sun-shades, in his mind's eye, as he closed the outer door behind him and gently opened the inner one. The church was flooded with moon-light and snowlight, and there was one lamp burning at the back of the pulpit; a candle, too, on the pulpit steps. There was the tip-tap-tip of a tack-hammer going on in a distant corner. Was somebody hanging Christmas garlands? The new red carpet attracted his notice, and as he grew

Kate Douglas Wiggin
Homespun Tales

I stood like one bewitched.  I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion:  This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark.

We now returned to the Bay of Atacames in search of provisions, for which purpose we sent our boat ashore with twenty men, who soon returned, saying they had found an Indian village of fifty houses, but the inhabitants were all fled and had left nothing behind. In the river we found a fine bark of about fifty tons, with as much new plank in her as would have built another of equal size; and we took another of about ten tons, laden with plantains. This we resolved to retain, instead of a long-boat. She had two masts and two square-sails, and having fitted her for our purpose, we called her the Dragon. The country in the neighbourhood of this bay is very pleasant, being well wooded and watered. About seven leagues to the N.E. is the Bay of _St Mattheo_, the land about it being very high, and there are many shoals about it, running two leagues out to sea. For three or four leagues the water is only from four fathoms to six, and this bay has white cliffs both to the north and south. In the bottom of the bay there are two rivers running into the sea, both of which are what the seamen call _alligator water_, that is, white and musky as before described. On each side of these rivers there are shoals of sand; and near their mouths are fine groves of tall spreading green trees, which are the marks by which they may be found, as their mouths are narrow, and not discernible at a distance. These rivers are seldom frequented by the Spaniards, except for refreshments, for which they are well adapted, as all the adjoining

After we had furled the sails and got dinner, we saw the Loriotte nearing, and she had her anchor before night.  At sun-down we went ashore again, and found the Loriotte's boat waiting on the beach. The Sandwich Islander who could speak English, told us that he had been up to the town; that our agent, Mr. R-----, and some other passengers, were going to Monterey with us, and that we were to sail the same night.  In a few minutes Captain T-----, with two gentlemen and one female, came down, and we got ready to go off. They had a good deal of baggage, which we put into the bows of the boat, and then two of us took the seora in our arms, and waded with her through the water, and put her down safely in the stern. She appeared much amused with the transaction, and her husband was perfectly satisfied, thinking any arrangement good which saved his wetting his feet.  I pulled the after oar, so that I heard the conversation, and learned that one of the men, who, as well as I could see in the darkness, was a young-looking man, in the European dress, and covered up in a large cloak, was the agent of the firm to which our vessel belonged; and the other, who was dressed in the Spanish dress of the country, was a brother of our captain, who had been many years a trader on the coast, and had married the lady who was in the boat.  She was a delicate, dark-complexioned young woman, and of one of the best families in California.  I also found that we were to sail the same night.  As soon as we got on board,

Dear me, where DO they keep them, these women that one reads about? I suppose where they keep the pretty girl of Art. You have seen her, have you not, Reader, the pretty girl in the picture? She leaps the six-barred gate with a yard and a half to spare, turning round in her saddle the while to make some smiling remark to the comic man behind, who, of course, is standing on his head in the ditch. She floats gracefully off Dieppe on stormy mornings. Her baigneuse--generally of chiffon and old point lace--has not lost a curve. The older ladies, bathing round her, look wet. Their dress clings damply to their limbs. But the pretty girl of Art dives, and never a curl of her hair is disarranged. The pretty girl of Art stands lightly on tip-toe and volleys a tennis-ball six feet above her head. The pretty girl of Art keeps the head of the punt straight against a stiff current and a strong wind. SHE never gets the water up her sleeve, and down her back, and all over the cushions. HER pole never sticks in the mud, with the steam launch ten yards off and the man looking the other way. The pretty girl of Art skates in high-heeled French shoes at an angle of forty-five to the surface of the ice, both hands in her muff. SHE never sits down plump, with her feet a yard apart, and says "Ough." The pretty girl of Art drives tandem down Piccadilly, during the height of the season, at eighteen miles an hour. It never occurs to HER leader that the time has now arrived for him to turn round and get into the cart. The pretty

Jerome K. Jerome
The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow

largest of these lakes, nearly all of them shallow, is Lake Okeechobee, a body of water about 1250 sq. m. in area and almost uniformly shallow, its depth seldom being greater than 15 ft. Caloosahatchee river, flowing into the Gulf of Mexico near Charlotte Harbour, is its principal outlet. Among the other lakes are Orange, Crescent, George, Weir, Harris, Eustis, Apopka, Tohopekaliga, Kissimmee and Istokpoga. The chief feature of the southern portion of the state is the Everglades (q.v.), the term "Everglade State" being popularly applied to Florida. Within the state there are many swamps, the largest of which are the Big Cypress Swamp in the S. adjoining the Everglades on the W., and Okefinokee Swamp, extending from Georgia into the N.E. part of the state.

Various
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5

"How he gets on board I don't know.  All wet and shaken and excited and out of breath, he does get on board.  Ship lying over, smothered in sprays, but not moving very much; just enough to jag one's nerve a bit. He finds them all crowded on the deck-house forward, in their shiny oilskins, with faces like sick men.  Captain Harry can't believe his eyes.  What!  Mr. Cloete!  What are you doing here, in God's name? . . . Your wife's ashore there, looking on, gasps out Cloete; and after they had talked a bit, Captain Harry thinks it's uncommonly plucky and kind of his brother's partner to come off to him like this.  Man glad to have somebody to talk to. . . It's a bad business, Mr. Cloete, he says.  And Cloete rejoices to hear that.  Captain Harry thinks he had done his best, but the cable had parted when he tried to anchor her.  It was a great trial to lose the ship.  Well, he would have to face it.  He fetches a deep sigh now and then.  Cloete almost sorry he had come on board, because to be on that wreck keeps his chest in a tight band all the time. They crouch out of the wind under the port boat, a little apart from the men.  The life-boat had gone away after putting Cloete on board, but was coming back next high water to take off the crew if no attempt at getting the ship afloat could be made.  Dusk was falling; winter's day; black sky; wind rising.  Captain Harry felt melancholy.  God's will be done. If she must be left on the rocks--why, she must.  A man should take what God sends him standing up. . . Suddenly his voice breaks, and he squeezes

Joseph Conrad
Within the Tides

It was New-Year's night. An aged man was standing at a window. He raised his mournful eyes toward the deep-blue sky, where the stars were floating, like white lilies, on the surface of a clear, calm lake. Then he cast them on the earth, where few more hopeless beings than himself now moved toward their certain goal--the tomb. Already he had passed sixty of the stages which lead to it, and he had brought from his journey nothing but errors and remorse. His health was destroyed, his mind vacant, his heart sorrowful, and his old age devoid of comfort. The days of his youth rose up in a vision before him, and he recalled the solemn moment, when his father had placed him at the entrance of two roads, one leading into a peaceful, sunny land, covered with a fertile harvest, and resounding with soft, sweet songs; while the other conducted the wanderer into a deep, dark cave, whence there was no issue, where poison flowed instead of water, and where serpents hissed and crawled.

Various
Harper's Magazine, Vol III, June 1851

In her imagination gradually took form the ideal hero her heart craved for. She was resting on a country road, and a man was approaching. He was tall, with dark, wavy hair and smooth face, and the clean-cut features of a Greek god. He knew she was rich, but he cared not, for he despised mere wealth, and he was about to pass by unheeding, when he chanced to notice her face, which pleased his sense of beauty. He stopped wondering, and, chatting with her, marveled at the liquid splendor of her eyes. This was the woman he had sought, the woman for whom he would toil and fight. He took her hand, and at his touch her heart leaped ecstatically. A strange thrill stirred her as he gazed hungrily into her eyes and gently drew her to him. Timidly she yielded to his ardent embrace, and as he clasped her soft form roughly to his strong breast and his warm lips met hers in a deep, lingering kiss that seemed to aspire her very soul, a sensation she had never known before invaded her entire being. She felt as though she would swoon.

Arthur Hornblow
By Right of Conquest

She returned his gaze and evidently divined something of what was in his mind, for her chin lifted a little in defiance.  The flickering light from the candle fell on her hair, brown and wavy, and in a tumble of graceful disorder, and threw into bold relief the firm lines of her chin and throat.  She was not beautiful, but she certainly merited the term "pretty," which formed on Calumet's lips as he gazed at her, though it remained unspoken.  He gave her this tribute grudgingly, conscious of the deep impression she was making upon him.  He had never seen a woman like her--for the reason, perhaps, that he had studiously avoided the good ones.  Mere facial beauty would not have made this impression on him--it was something deeper, something more substantial and abiding.  And, watching her, he suddenly knew what it was.  There was in her eyes, back of the defiance that was in them now, an expression that told of sturdy honesty and virtue.  These gave to her features a repose and calm that could not be disturbed, an unconscious dignity of character that excitement could not efface, and her gaze was unwavering as her eyes met his in a sharp, brief struggle.  Brief, for Calumet's drooped.  He felt the dominant personality of the girl and tried to escape its effect; looked at her with a snarl, writhing under her steady gaze, a slow red coming into his cheeks.

Charles Alden Seltzer
The Boss of the Lazy Y

Among diversions for men golf, in spite of a certain reaction, has still the chief place. The club house is on the west shore of the bay. One plays out northward. The players zigzag here and there among curious earth mounds formed by the eddying swirl of water when the river's current held high carnival over these level stretches. Then the course leads up to the higher slope and mounts steadily, until, at the farthest hole, a considerable height has been reached. As one turns back towards the river he faces a wonder scene of changing grey and blue and green and white. The smoke of passing steamers floats lazily in the air; they take the deep channel by the south shore and are a dozen miles away. It is usually a silent world that one looks out upon; but when there is a north-east wind great green waves come rolling in upon the sandy shore of the bay and fill the air with their undertone.

George M. Wrong
A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs

7. The association of little people with water as a home is a widespread notion. The Sea-Trows of the Shetlanders inhabit a region of their own at the bottom of the sea. They here respire a peculiar atmosphere, and live in habitations constructed of the choicest submarine productions. They are, however, not always small, but may be of diverse statures, like the Scandinavian Necks. In Germany the Water-Dwarfs are also known. At Seewenheiher, in the Black Forest, a little water-man (_Seemännlein_) used to come and join the people, work the whole day along with them, and in the evening go back into the lakes.[A] The size of the Breton Korrigs or Korrigan, if we may believe Villemarqué in his account of this folk, does not exceed two feet, but their proportions are most exact, and they have long flowing hair, which they comb out with great care. Their only dress is a long white veil, which they wind round their body. Seen at night or in the dusk of the evening, their beauty is great; but in the daylight their eyes appear red, their hair is white, and their faces wrinkled; hence they rarely let themselves be seen by day. They are fond of music, and have fine voices, but are not much given to dancing. Their favourite haunts are the springs, by which they sit and comb their hair.[B] The Maories also have their Water-Pigmies, the Ponaturi, who are, according to Mr. Tregear, elves, little tiny people, mostly dwellers in water, coming ashore to sleep.[C] "The spirits most commonly met with in African

When dawn broke, ominously red, the _Cetacea_ was hove to with a small trysail set, rising and falling with a drunken stagger, as the long, white seas rolled up on her weather bow. Though she shipped no heavy water, she was drifting fast to leeward: the island had faded to a gray streak on the horizon. It would be a day's work to beat back again, even if the wind abated, and it showed no sign of doing so. By noon the land was out of sight, and the sea had grown heavier. For an hour or two there was misty sunshine, and the oncoming walls of water glistened luminously blue beneath their incandescent crests. Some of them curled dangerously, and the trysail flapped, half empty, when the _Cetacea_ sank into the trough. She lay there a few moments while her crew watched the comber that rose ahead. With slanted mast and rag of drenched sail she looked uncomfortably small; but somehow she staggered up the slope before the roller broke. Jimmy could not tell how far he helped her with the helm, but the sweat of nervous strain dripped from his face as he turned his wheel. Now and then she was a few seconds slow in responding to it, and when her bows swung clear her after-half was buried in a rush of spouting foam. It sluiced off, however, and the sharp swoop into the trough was repeated as comber after comber swept upon them.

Harold Bindloss
The Secret of the Reef

At long distance, looking over the blue waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in clear weather, you might think that you saw a lonely sea gull, snow-white, perching motionless on a cobble of gray rock. Then, as your boat drifted in, following the languid tide and the soft southern breeze, you would perceive that the cobble of rock was a rugged hill with a few bushes and stunted trees growing in the crevices, and that the gleaming speck near the summit must be some kind of a building,--if you were on the coast of Italy or Spain you would say a villa or a farmhouse. Then as you floated still farther north and drew nearer to the coast, the desolate hill would detach itself from the mainland and become a little mountain isle, with a flock of smaller islets clustering around it as a brood of wild ducks keep close to their mother, and with deep water, nearly two miles wide, flowing between it and the shore; while the shining speck on the seaward side stood clearly as a low, whitewashed dwelling with a sturdy, round tower at one end, crowned with a big eight-sided lantern--a solitary lighthouse.