Ray Stannard Baker

Name: Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV
Author: Ray Stannard Baker

Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

Summary

“Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV”, published in 1907, is a work by Ray Stannard Baker. It explores elements such as Harriet, Anglo-Saxons and covers.

Quotes from Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (Ray Stannard Baker)

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ Who shall say that the past does not live! An odour will sometimes set the blood coursing in an old emotion, and a line of poetry is the resurrection and the life. For a moment I forgot Harriet and the agent, I forgot myself, I even forgot the book on my knee—everything but that hour in the past—a view of shimmering hot housetops, the heat and dust and noise of an August evening in the city, the dumb weariness of it all, the loneliness, the longing for green fields ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ As I worked with my axe and hammer, I heard a light wagon come rattling up the road. Across the valley a man had begun to chop a tree. I could see the axe steel flash brilliantly in the sunshine before I heard the sound of the blow. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ Finally, I took the book which he had been urging upon me, at which Harriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention. She knew the danger when I really got my hands on a book. But I made up as innocent as a child. I opened the book almost at random—and it was as though, walking down a strange road, I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before in years. For there on the page before me I read:
"The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ ENTERTAIN AN AGENT UNAWARES
With the coming of winter I thought the life of a farmer might lose something of its charm. So much interest lies in the growth not only of crops but of trees, vines, flowers, sentiments and emotions. In the summer the world is busy, concerned with many things and full of gossip: in the winter I anticipated a cessation of many active interests and enthusiasms. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ Are you not afraid of being stopped in the road and robbed? Why, I've seen the time when, if I had known you carried such things as these, such cures for sick hearts, I think I should have stopped you myself! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ It was, indeed, with an indescribable thrill that I heard him add the details, one by one—the mortgage on his place, now rapidly being paid off, the brother who was a plumber, the mother-in-law who was not a mother-in-law of the comic papers. And finally he showed us the picture of the wife and baby that he had in the cover of his watch; a fat baby with its head resting on its mother's shoulder. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ I continued as though I had not heard him, "the insides are mine and have been for a long time: that is why I proposed buying the covers separately."
I opened his book again. I thought I would see what had been chosen for its pages. And I found there many fine and great things.
"Let me read you this," I said to Mr. Dixon; "it has been mine for a long time. I will not sell it to you. I will give it to you outright. The best things are always given." ”

[↩︎]

Source: Wikisource

Ray Stannard Baker, Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (1907)

“ As I glanced up from time to time I saw the agent's face change, and his look deepen and the lips, usually so energetically tense, loosen with emotion. Surely no poem in all the language conveys so perfectly the simple love of the home, the quiet joys, hopes, pathos of those who live close to the soil.
When I had finished—I stopped with the stanza beginning:
"Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way";
the agent turned away his head trying to brave out his emotion. Most of us, Anglo-Saxons, tremble before a tear when we might fearlessly beard a tiger. ”

Ray Stannard Baker

Summary

Quotes from Adventures in Contentment — Chapter IV (Ray Stannard Baker)

Common terms

Similar works

Get perspective with Kwize: daily news enlightened by great literature