United States or South Africa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then suddenly his eyes fell on the figure of little Mary, who sat behind the table with her thin face resting in her hands and her eyes burning with thoughts of that great wonder-world which their visitor knew so well. His presence in the room seemed to the child to bring its marvels almost within touch.
By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. The Carpet-Bag
Oh that you could see it all! It is wonderful; no words could describe it, far less mine. Mr. This new wonder-world, so enchanting, tantalizing, intoxicating, makes me despair, for I cannot make you see what I am seeing!
His comments told of the imaginative power born in his Celtic blood: "Bill, let's play you are the Red Dermid smiting the bullhide bearing Lachlin," he would shout, and at once the brightness of his mental picture and his familiarity with the nursery tales of Erin that were current even in the woods created a wonder-world about him. Then his Ulster mind would speak.
Incidents long forgotten came back with singular vividness: he saw the Past as he had not seen it while it was the Present; remembrances of home, recollections of infancy, recurred to him with terrible intensity, the artless pleasures and the trifling griefs, the little hurts and the tender pettings, the hopes and the anxieties of those who loved him, the smiles and tears of slaves ... And his first Creole pony, a present from his father the day after he had proved himself able to recite his prayers correctly in French, without one mispronunciation without saying crasse for grace, and yellow Michel, who taught him to swim and to fish and to paddle a pirogue; and the bayou, with its wonder-world of turtles and birds and creeping things; and his German tutor, who could not pronounce the j; and the songs of the cane-fields, strangely pleasing, full of quaverings and long plaintive notes, like the call of the cranes ... Tou', tou' pays blanc! ... Afterward Camaniere had leased the place; everything must have been changed; even the songs could not be the same.
I give these many details because you must appreciate what this new wonder-world meant to a man who was considered nobody much by his own University. Then one day a mere card: "This is honestly a day in which no two minutes of free time exist so superbly grand has it gone and so fruitful for the book the best of all yet.
The Blue Moon, lighted from bows to stern lay in the centre, and from her deck there went up showers of coloured rockets that fell like burning rain upon the sea. There was a string band on board, and the strains floated across the water as echoes from another world a wonder-world of soft melodies and laughing voices and lightly splashing oars.
Sometimes Boy Comfort's chubby hand would come out involuntarily and want to take hold of things; but he withdrew it in alarm as if he had burnt himself, saying "Ow!" and then the two children would run as fast as they could up to the house. For them the garden was a wonder-world full of delights and full of terrors.
He was himself so much, could he be also a part of this wonder-world? It seemed impossible, so wholly new was everything it held. A New Force Enters His Life Back at the railway station, Hartigan looked for his bag where he had dropped it, but it was gone. The agent, glancing across and divining his quandary, said stolidly: "I guess Dr. Jebb took it. Ain't you the party he's looking for?
Say that a hot blue fog quivers in the air above this meadow-land, and is breathed in at every breath you take. Conceive a mind so played upon by this vapour that the meadows and the woods beyond the meadows are gradually lost to view, and a wonder-world quickly takes their place.
Word Of The Day