Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
It was like the noise of starlings on a spring morning. In Egypt, where ignorance is bliss, it is certainly folly to be wise. In the East, the inquiring mind, especially in domestic matters, is often its own enemy. To Margaret, Egypt held for the time being nothing which was unclean or unlovely, nothing which was bettered by ignorance. She was lost in its light and mystery.
When we had returned to the drawing-room the smart London ladies flocked together in a bevy and began chattering like a field of starlings. Their talk seemed to be altogether of their male acquaintances, whom they called by their names Jack and Tom and Reggie and Algy, and so on. Lady Ardaragh sat down by my grandmother and talked to her in a low voice.
He did not notice the starlings flying in and out of their boxes on the tall pines, did not notice that there was already a bright crescent in the evening sky that was growing darker and darker, and a golden star near it, he only noticed with satisfaction as he entered the hall at the villa that the coats and hats had disappeared from the pegs. That was good, the visitors had left.
Look at that cherry-tree in the orchard. A month ago its branches were laden with fruit. Now there is not a cherry to be seen. The blackbirds and the starlings have stripped the tree as clean as a bone. Their point of view is that the cherries are provided for them, and they are right. They know nothing of the laws of property which man makes for his own protection.
It was a warm evening; in the dusk of the big rooms the hum of voices was low and pleasant, broken only now and then by Van Torp's more strident tone. Outside it was still light, and the starlings and blackbirds and thrushes were finishing their supper, picking up the unwary worms and the tardy little snails, and making a good deal of sweet noise about it.
This was that when the owner of Abbotsbury came down for the October shooting and found the starlings more numerous than ever, he put himself into a fine passion and reproached his keepers and other servants for not having got rid of the birds as he had desired them to do.
On the opening of the great arch at London Bridge by throwing two arches into one, and the removal of a large pier, the excavation around and under the starlings was so considerable, that the bridge was thought to be in great danger of falling.
He went for a walking tour in the fens, and returned enchanted. "By Ely," he said, "the line crosses a gigantic fen—Whittlesea mere in old days—and on a clear day you can see at least fifteen miles either way. As we crossed it a great skein of starlings rose out of a little holt, and streamed north; the herons or quiet cattle stood along the huge dykes.
"Hurrah!" they cried, "and not a day too soon; for we saw a flock of starlings in the next field and if we don't clear the tree, they will." "Very well; clear it, then. Only mind and fill my baskets quite full, for preserving. What is over you may eat, if you like."
The starlings began to make their appearance, and the moisture of the earth rose again to the surface and broke its way through the hard crust, in dark patches; and business ventured to raise its head. A peculiar universal will seemed to prevail in all things.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking