United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Lieutenant-Colonel Lantz, of the Engineer Corps, was with Captain Roger when he died in the trench before Mamelon Vert; and might have been at that time pleasant to look upon, in his uniform with its black velvet breastplate; but, having been promoted some time ago to the office, he had grown aged, leaning over the plans and draughts on long tables covered with rules and compasses.
A few days after his arrival the warm, bright bed-chamber was exchanged for a cold dark closet opening off Madame's boudoir, a cupboard furnished with a rickety cot and a broken chair, lacking any provision for heat or light, and ventilated solely by a transom over the door; and inasmuch as Madame shared the French horror of draughts and so kept her boudoir hermetically sealed nine months of the year, the transom didn't mend matters much.
"And so, Isaac, you have really proposed to darling Peggy, then? and we are to have a wedding shortly?" continued his tormentor. "And pray which did look the most foolish of the two? or was it a drawn-game, as we sometimes say of draughts?"
He had to look after his master's horse, and when there was any fighting he had to carry a shield and ride beside his master, ready to die for him if necessary. Among the games he played indoors were chess and draughts, both of which people still play. One knight had perhaps many squires, and they were all supposed to love him very much, and to be perfectly obedient to him.
She looked up, laughing. "Why not? Poor Durdles. Are you better? Biédnie... give me your hands. But how cold they are! And there are draughts everywhere. I've brought you some chocolates and a book." "My dear!..." Vera cried again. "He won't like that," pointing to a work of fiction by a modern Russian literary lady whose heart and brain are of the succulent variety. "Why not? She's very good.
Like the human comedy, this also has its characters privileged by birth, clothed in purple, dazzling with embroidery, "adorned with lofty plumes," who strut pretentiously; "its idle rich," covered with robes of gold of rustling splendour, who display their diamonds, their topazes and their sapphires; who gleam with fire and shine like mirrors, magnificent of mien; but their brains are "dense, heavy, inept, without imagination, without ingenuity, deprived of all common sense, knowing no other anxiety than to drink in the sunlight at the heart of a rose or to sleep off their draughts in the shadow of a leaf.
Your noisy people generally grow taciturn in their cups but Sir Blue-bottle, though he drinks deep draughts of your wine, particularly if it abound in sweetness, is never changed. He is naturally giddy, and according to entomologists, always sees more than double, while his head was never made to be turned. So may you hope for peace only in his flight or death! Absurdities: in Prose and Verse.
In a short time I drank full draughts from the black cup of sleep; for an hour or two all remained in obscurity; Oblivion and Nothingness submerged me in their somber waves. Nevertheless the haziness of my perceptions gradually cleared away, dreams began to brush me lightly in their silent flight. The eyes of my soul opened, and I saw my room as it was in reality.
Whoso saith thus, except he drink of it ten times, he dieth the same day. When they heard this, they feared death and cried to us, 'Give us to drink the whole ten times. So we gave them to drink, and when they swallowed the rest of the ten draughts they waxed drunken exceedingly and their strength failed them and they availed not to mount us.
Sturk was playing draughts with old Arthur Slowe, and Dangerfield, erect and grim, was looking on the game, over his shoulder. Toole and Sturk were more distant and cold in their intercourse of late, though this formality partook of their respective characters.
Word Of The Day