United States or Burundi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was not an agreeable two centuries for Englishmen who ever thought of India to read about. Two centuries of squabblings and strugglings with Dutch settlers and with Portuguese settlers, of desperate truckling to native princes.
In 1855 Wagner went to London to conduct a season of the Philharmonic Society. That body invited him on the recommendation of Sainton, the violinist, and the season was one of its most successful. The feuds that arose, and the newspaper and other squabblings, have small interest for us now; but it is certain that the finer spirits appreciated, or partly appreciated, him, and Royalty flattered him.
The constant changes of boundary of these tiny lordships, the hazy character of the powers possessed by their rulers, the multiplicity of free townships yielding obedience to none but their own civic rulers, the brief but none the less tyrannous rule of scores of robber barons who exercised a régime of blood and iron within a radius of five miles of their castellated eyries, render the tracing of the history of the Rhine during the Middle Ages a task of almost unequalled complexity, robbed of all the romance of history by reason of the necessity for constant attention to the details of dynastic and territorial changes and the petty squabblings and dreary scufflings of savage barons with their neighbours or with the scarcely less brutal ecclesiastical dignitaries, who, joining with gusto in the general mêlée of land-snatching, served to swell the tumult with their loud-voiced claims for land and lordship.
Foremost among his persecutors was the Archbishop of Treves, and with him Sigebert dealt in summary fashion, depriving him of his archbishopric and offering the see to St. Goar. The latter, however, was sick of the perpetual intrigues and squabblings of the court, and longed to return to the shelter of his mossy cell and the sincere friendship of the poor fishermen among whom his mission lay.
One has to bear in mind the brutal fact that man and wife, as a rule, see a great deal too much of each other thence most of the ills of married life: squabblings, discontents, small or great disgusts, leading often enough to altri guai. People get to think themselves victims of incompatibility, when they are merely suffering from a foolish custom the habit of being perpetually together.
He believed that their future well-being lay in his claim. If that could not be worked, then there was no other way. He had just finished clearing up his hut, and the twins were busy with their games outside in the sun, aided by their four-legged yellow companion, whose voice was always to be heard above their excited squabblings and laughter.
A few continental visits, and tours in England, Scotland, and Wales, all undertaken apparently with professional objects, incessant squabblings with his engravers, the most wearisome haggling with picture-dealers, genuine hard work, and the production of very perfect specimens of landscape art, and the outlines of Turner's life seem to be fairly sketched.
A slave is heard of one day, talked about the next, searched out the day after, seen the next, reflections next day, price fixed next, goods offered next, squabblings next, bargain upset next, new disputes next, goods assorted next, final arrangement next, goods delivered and exchanged next, &c., &c., and the whole of this melancholy exhibition of a wrangling cupidity over the sale of human beings is wound up by the present of a few parched peas, a few Barbary almonds, and a little tobacco being given to the Soudanese merchants, the parties separating with as much self-complacency, as if they had arranged the mercantile affairs of all Africa.
All but the youngest Jackdaw were enchanted with their unutterable beauty and value; they were never tired of quarrelling over the possession and arrangement of them. "But what are they for?" asked the youngest, a perverse bird who grouped himself apart from the rest, and took no share in their daily squabblings.
We have made our home with him in Dent-dale; for there Harry hath bought a little farm, with a pretty odd farmhouse belonging thereto; and our father lives with us, well content, and in great peace. For no squabblings about ecclesiastical matters ever trouble the quiet of our sweet mountain solitude.
Word Of The Day