United States or Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I confess that my conversation with Aph-Lin, and the extreme coolness with which he stated his inability to control the dangerous caprice of his daughter, and treated the idea of the reduction into a cinder to which her amorous flame might expose my too seductive person, took away the pleasure I should otherwise have had in the contemplation of my host's country-seat, and the astonishing perfection of the machinery by which his farming operations were conducted.
As this was at some little distance, and as Aph-Lin was not fond of walking, while I had discreetly relinquished all attempts at flying, we proceeded to our destination in one of the aerial boats belonging to my host. A child of eight years old, in his employ, was our conductor. My host and myself reclined on cushions, and I found the movement very easy and luxurious.
How much more improper to address them to a Tish, who has never presumed to solicit your affections, and who can never regard you with other sentiments than those of reverence and awe!" Aph-Lin made me a covert sing of approbation, but said nothing. "Be not so cruel!" exclaimed Zee, still in sonorous accents. "Can love command itself where it is truly felt?
But her love of reading did not prevent Bra from the discharge of her duties as mistress of the largest household in the city. She went daily the round of the chambers, and saw that the automata and other mechanical contrivances were in order, that the numerous children employed by Aph-Lin, whether in his private or public capacity, were carefully tended.
Do you suppose that a maiden Gy will conceal a sentiment that it elevates her to feel? What a country you must have come from!" Here Aph-Lin gently interposed, saying, "Among the Tish-a the rights of your sex do not appear to be established, and at all events my guest may converse with you more freely if unchecked by the presence of others."
Their staple beverage, however, is water, in the choice of which they are very fastidious, distinguishing at once the slightest impurity. "My younger son takes great pleasure in augmenting our produce," said Aph-Lin as we passed through the storehouses, "and therefore will inherit these lands, which constitute the chief part of my wealth.
On quitting you that day, Aph-Lin accosted me, and said, 'No path between the stranger's home and ours should be left unclosed, or the sorrow and evil of his home may descend to ours. Take with thee the children of thy band, smite the sides of the cavern with your vril staves till the fall of their fragments fills up every chink through which a gleam of our lamps could force its way."
Lest in naught, and unwittingly, I should betray your hospitality; lest, in the caprice of will which in our world is proverbial among the other sex, and from which even a Gy is not free, your adorable daughter should deign to regard me, though a Tish, as if I were a civilised An, and and and " "Court you as her spouse," put in Aph-Lin, gravely, and without any visible sign of surprise or displeasure.
Now, I had never seen a burial-place or cemetery amongst this people, and, glad to seize even so melancholy an occasion to defer an encounter with Zee, I asked Aph-Lin if I might be permitted to witness with him the interment of his relation; unless, indeed, it were regarded as one of those sacred ceremonies to which a stranger to their race might not be admitted.
With such a cover a Gy now approached the son, and placed it over the cup, on which it closed with a spring. The closed door shut with a musical sound, and all was over. "And this," said I, with my mind full of what I had witnessed "this, I presume, is your usual form of burial?" "Our invariable form," answered Aph-Lin. "What is it amongst your people?" "We inter the body whole within the earth."
Word Of The Day