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And now, at eventide, whilst the Solons of the little commonwealth were making laws, solving problems and building defences against the common enemy the wolf of penury and hunger I was sitting on the steps or on the low window-sills at the Eyry, meditating and thinking ever of the beautiful things with which I was surrounded; thinking of the glowworms I found in the path to Cow Island, their wonderful beauty, and how like illuminated pearls were their tiny lamps, and when I touched them how they rolled themselves into a coil that resembled the pin of pearls my mother wore on her bosom, only they were more beautiful; thinking that their lights translated into words were even more beautiful than their phosphorescent hues, for they said, "Come to me, my love!"
There must be very little tobacco left at Havana, if we can have faith in these displays, so rich in famous brands. As I have said, it was early morning. Servant-maids, kneeling on the steps or standing on the window-sills, were going on with the Saturday scrubbing.
Mockingly the little cool vines crept in about the window-sills and over the imprisoning panes, as if to taunt the victims who were caught in the death-trap. "At any rate, if we die you'll die too!" cried Katie Craigin, shaking her fist at the long green tendrils that swept across the window nearest her machine. "Oh, you! You'll burn to a crisp at the roots! You'll wither up an' die.
She speaks somewhere of the birds on her island as "so tame, knowing how well they are beloved, that they gather on the window-sills, twittering and fluttering gay and graceful, turning their heads this way and that, eying you askance without a trace of fear." And so it was with the human beings who came to know her.
In the gallery were many women, and their diaphanous gowns and the incessant flutter of their fans imparted to this portion of the Hall a pale illusion of comfort. In the hall below, men stood upon the window-sills, choked the entrances, crowded the corridors without.
His nests adorned the frieze, but they were full of squeaking youngsters and we could not shut the parents out. So we banished them during operating hours by screens of mosquito gauze; and to reward us, they sang to our bedridden men from ward window-sills. But despite these shortcomings of the operating theatre itself, we did good work here, and got splendid results.
So many children are brought down to our watering-place that, when they are not out of doors, as they usually are in fine weather, it is wonderful where they are put: the whole village seeming much too small to hold them under cover. In the afternoons, you see no end of salt and sandy little boots drying on upper window-sills.
It seems scarcely credible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that in some dwellings she may not keep a cat, a dog, or even a bird, neither may she have flowers in pots on her window-sills. She is hedged round with prohibitions, but she is expected to be superior and to abide in staid respectability on an income of less than thirty shillings per week.
When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the window-sills, chatting, craning out their heads, and talking from one window to the other. They saw the young men emerge from the Cafe Bombarda arm in arm. The latter turned round, made signs to them, smiled, and disappeared in that dusty Sunday throng which makes a weekly invasion into the Champs-Elysees.
It is surprising to observe the effects of the climate on buildings in this country. A good stone house, not ten years old, carefully built, and pointed between the joints of the masonry with the best cement, requires a total repair after that period, and often before. The window-sills and lintels of limestone break and crack, and the chimneys soon become disjointed and unsafe.
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