Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 23, 2025
He had a permanent running wound on the outside of his right leg, originated by the constant bruisings of aristocratic carriage-poles during the many years that he had been in regular employ at the King's Arms, Casterbridge. Inside this cumbrous and creaking structure, and behind this decayed conductor, the partie carrée took their seats the bride and bridegroom and Mr and Mrs Crick.
And Giles could only afford to bestow a fragmentary glance at any time on the refractory, for, almost at one and the same moment he had to check the impetuous, hold up a warning hand to the unruly, rescue a runaway child from innumerable horse-legs, pilot a stout but timid lady from what we may call refuge-island, in the middle of the roadway, to the pavement, answer an imbecile's question as to the whereabouts of the Tower or Saint Paul's, order a loitering cabby to move on, and look out for his own toes, as well as give moderate attention to the carriage-poles which perpetually threatened the small of his own back.
Here were also four or five Ewharre no-Eatua, or houses of God, to which carriage-poles were fitted, like that which we had seen at Huaheine.
Even his superiors acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles, horses' ears, and places whither an author ought not to penetrate even in thought places whither only a Customs official is permitted to go.
Besides, you'll run a chance of growing absent-minded, and won't see danger approaching; so that you'll tumble over things and damage your shins, and tumble into things and damage your clothes, and tumble off things and damage your carcase, and get run over by wheels, and poked in the back by carriage-poles, and killed by trains, and spiflicated in various ways all of which evils are to be avoided by looking up and looking round, and taking note of what you see, as you go along the track of life d'ye see?"
Let the reader try to fancy it; let him first look down upon the arena, and see it glistening in its frame of dull-gray granite walls; let him then, in this perfect field, see the chariots, light of wheel, very graceful, and ornate as paint and burnishing can make them Messala's rich with ivory and gold; let him see the drivers, erect and statuesque, undisturbed by the motion of the cars, their limbs naked, and fresh and ruddy with the healthful polish of the baths in their right hands goads, suggestive of torture dreadful to the thought in their left hands, held in careful separation, and high, that they may not interfere with view of the steeds, the reins passing taut from the fore ends of the carriage-poles; let him see the fours, chosen for beauty as well as speed; let him see them in magnificent action, their masters not more conscious of the situation and all that is asked and hoped from them their heads tossing, nostrils in play, now distent, now contracted limbs too dainty for the sand which they touch but to spurn limbs slender, yet with impact crushing as hammers every muscle of the rounded bodies instinct with glorious life, swelling, diminishing, justifying the world in taking from them its ultimate measure of force; finally, along with chariots, drivers, horses, let the reader see the accompanying shadows fly; and, with such distinctness as the picture comes, he may share the satisfaction and deeper pleasure of those to whom it was a thrilling fact, not a feeble fancy.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking