Various

“ We drew the canoes out upon a meadow which undulated in graceful billows at our every movement. A step would shake all the surface for a rod about us, while our combined tread sent waves of grassy earth in every direction. A sudden leap so shook the cup of cold coffee sitting by one of the Indians, six or seven yards away, that the liquid spilled over the cup's edge. The whole meadow, solid to the eye, is but one of those monster sponges that hold in abeyance waters which otherwise would sweep like a flood down the great rivers. ”

“ When they reached the well Miss Custer stepped upon the flat white stones with which it was walled up to the surface of the ground and gazed down into its dark depths. "What a queer feeling that is which one is almost sure to have standing upon the edge of danger!—a sort of reckless impulse to throw one's self forward. Did you ever feel it?" Ruth, standing just behind her as she leaned over, saw her hands involuntarily clutch her dress, as though the strange temptation were so great that she must hold herself forcibly back from it. ”

“ This prolonged warfare has made nationality the uppermost thought in the life of the Hungarian: it is the influence controlling all his ideas, his feelings, his poetry and his art. His music embalms a thousand years of struggle for it, and every note of its wild, melancholy strains breathes tales of war and sorrow, of hope and triumph. The music interpreting such an intense nationality ought to be a peculiar one; and it is. A foreigner, having once heard it, can never mistake its sounds for those of any other national music. ”

“ The Mitchella, the little partridge-berry, is here in bloom, and has been since the year came in.
The marsh that borders the beach-hammock and spreads a sea of silvery green before the mansion is not barren of attractions. Inquisitive and faint-hearted fiddler-crabs are darting in and out of their holes in the mud: an alligator now and then shows a hint of a head above the water of the creek, along whose banks walk daintily and proudly egrets and herons robed in white, and from the reeds of which myriads of water-hens send up a deafening chatter. ”

“ For the musical language of Germany embraces not only the few octaves of passion, but the whole keyboard of existence. It has preludes, symphonies and sonatas for every phase of life. Nothing smaller than this range would suffice to express the multiform ideas of a people so thoughtful and cosmopolitan. And though by this universal sympathy German music may have lost a purely national life, it is a most sufficing compensation to have gained the power of expressing the ideas of a whole epoch. ”

“ Mr. Bruce raised his head, showing at the same time a flash of his white teeth and his black eyes. "For once?" he repeated. "Making myself agreeable, or making a grotesque caricature of myself in my struggles to be agreeable, has been the business of my life."
"Oh, Mr. Bruce!" laughed Ruth. "Everybody knows you are delightful, but the idea of your making an effort in that direction is too absurd."
"If I had made that speech," thought Miss Custer, "Mrs. Tascher would have looked a severe criticism." ”

“ Once, on the skirts of a pine forest in the wilds of Argyleshire, I came suddenly on a gypsy-camp celebrating a186 wedding. The women were dancing the "Romalis" to a violin and tambourine. The music, the dance, the conical tents, the flashing swarthy faces, the careless piquant dresses, were all so Oriental in character that in spite of the mountains, the moors and the heather I found it hard to realize that I was in the heart of Scotland. Even when the most distinctive Scotch pibrochs were played I was quite conscious of an Eastern clash in them which no Scot could or would have given. ”

“ So men have a right to smuggle, have they? and smuggling isn't stealing? Come! I should just like this cousin of yours to give me half an hour of his company to argue out that matter in."
"My cousin isn't at home," said Eve, filled with a sudden horror of what might be expected from an argument between two such tempers as Reuben and Adam possessed. "And if you've only come here to argue, whether 'tis with me or with them, Reuben, 'tis a waste of time that'll do no good to you nor any of us." ”

“ That leopard of the Indiana woods, the sycamore, repeated itself in vistas.
"Sycamores always look like dazzling marble shafts blackened with patches of moss," said the young man.
"And their leaves," said the girl sitting on the log not far from him, "smell like poetry. I spread them on my face late in summer after a shower and suck up their breath. But I never can put the sensation into words."
"How's that for a sycamore?" he asked, showing a scrap.
She examined it with great satisfaction: "Why do you go about with a photographic car? Why don't you set out to be an artist?" ”

“ The most striking examples of Scotch music are the pibrochs and strathspeys. These compositions generally ring with a wild laughter that is almost harassing, especially when it is enhanced by the abrupt close with the fifth instead of the keynote. The ear, which has been longing for the rest, has a sense of being teased and deluded with the rollicking strain. As exponents of the cautious, cannie Scot we should think them a satire did we not know what a wild vein of Celtic wit runs through the granite foundation of his character. ”

“ And without another glance in his direction she walked away, while Reuben stood and watched her out of sight. "That's ended," he said, setting his lips firmly together and hardening the expression of his naturally grave face. "That mad game's finished, and finished so that I think I've done with sweet-hearting for as long as I live. Well, thank God! a man may get on very fairly though the woman that he made a fool of himself for flings back his love and turns him over for somebody else." ”

“ I often wonder that no musical speculator has ever organized a band of Russian, Hungarian and English gypsies. Certainly, it would give us a far more characteristic entertainment than bands of blackened "minstrels."
The Swiss love their national music as they love their mountains and their freedom; and at first sight it seems singular that a people so blended with the progress of liberty should possess a music singularly simple and pastoral. ”

“ The gypsy has no country, but his sentiment of nationality is strong and persistent, and his music is as peculiar as his language and customs. It is true that he steals the music of the country in which he sojourns just as readily as he steals the poultry from the roost or the linen from the line, but he always imparts to it some echo of his far Eastern home and some flavor of the tent and the hedgerow. ”

“ Something streaks away down a green drive. A young hound gives tongue, but his note of triumph quickly changes to a yelp as the vigilant whip catches him with the tip of his long lash and roars, "War' [1] hare!" Poor little man! He has tried to run what is called a "short-tailed fox," and returns to the pack a sadder and a wiser dog. But now the tails twinkle faster than ever. A low whimper from some of the old hounds, then a burst of joyous music from the pack. ”

“ Then comes the master, and we all crowd after them pell-mell with horses plunging and kicking, and as soon as we are fairly out in the open a kind of stampede takes place among the unruly young ones, and we see many an involuntary steeple-chase over the smooth green cricket-ground. Through the dark avenues of fir trees we canter to the temple, a little summerhouse on a promontory in the sea of wood that lies below, and we stand admiring the far blue distant view away to the Hogsback and the South Downs beyond Basingstoke as the hounds begin their work. ”

“ Mary's River, forms the harbor. Away north runs up Cumberland Beach, and among the trees and over a broad stretch of marsh gleam white the ruins of "Dungeness." West, again, one sees the gloomy pines of the main land, behind which the sun goes down, lighting gloriously the marsh and silver threads of the river.
Unlike the seasons of the North, there is here no perceptible line of demarcation between them. We cannot positively assert that spring has opened or summer or winter begun. As for autumn and harvest-time, the crops are being continually gathered in. ”

“ Of such stuff are our Arctic and African explorers made; the men who run the lightning-expresses have a touch of it; it crops out in steeple-climbers, cave-explorers, beast-tamers; it makes men assault cloud-piercing and ice-mantled mountain-peaks and launch their frail canoes for voyages down earth-riving cañons and across continent sundering oceans. Sometimes action is denied, and then it strikes in and makes poets—perhaps the most daring adventurers of all. ”

“ Musical taste in America is in progress of formation. We have no national music: we have not even a decided preference for any style. We like Beethoven and Chopin, but we also like Rossini and Donizetti and delight in Lecocq and Sullivan. In no respect is the national pride so utterly forgotten as in music. We give to all schools a fair hearing. The great German masters are household words: the national music of every land is welcome. ”

“ We turn off the moor into the shadow of the fir avenue that leads half a mile up to the park-gates. The ground, covered with a soft carpet of pine-needles and burrowed everywhere by the roots of the trees, gives off a hollow echo to the horses' clattering hoofs. The sombre avenue is alive in unwonted fashion to-day. Now we pass a group of pedestrians from the village; now a young farmer comes by on a half-broken colt which is to make its first acquaintance with the hounds ”

“ It is a strange scene that bursts upon the vision of the balloon-passenger as he rises above the housetops and trees. There is a moment when he beholds the thousands of upturned faces, the throngs of people in the street, at the windows and on the housetops, teams moving lazily hither and thither, and amid all a confused fluttering of leaves, frightened birds, waving flags and handkerchiefs, and a general commotion quite indescribable. ”

“ All Oriental music is distinguished by a pathetic, long—drawn, wailing monotony quite in keeping with the stationary and contemplative character of the people. We are struck at once with its frequent repetitions of one note and its short and cautious transitions, the intervals rarely being greater than a half, or at most a full, note. The conclusion of a measure is generally a descent, and the commencement of a new one seems to be a feeble effort to rise from the dreamy apathy in which Eastern imagination delights ”

“ A mound of shells, the accumulation of centuries and the result of countless Indian feasts, rose high above the southern marsh of Cumberland. A forest of live-oaks surrounded it on three sides, and at its feet ran the broad creek which wound through the marsh for miles, seeking the Sound at a point opposite the Florida shore. Here, for ages of time, the Indians of the South had resorted to feast upon the oysters with which the creek was filled. ”

“ A few women at the storekeeper's fence looked sidewise at each other as she paused to chat under the photographer's window.
The morning was so clear that every object stood in startling relief. A plume of steam far up the leafy railroad vista heralded the Peru express's lightning passage through the town. Scarcely a lounger was left on the platform. Mallston had a job of cleaning the cellar for the storekeeper, and at intervals appeared from its gaping doors with a basket of decayed potatoes on his shoulders. ”

“ The nervousness and chaffing before the start; the thrill and wonder of the upward rush; the strange exhilaration coming with relivening confidence; the unspeakable loveliness and grandeur of the prospect; the thousand varied incidents of the too-brief journey; the short, sharp excitement of the landing; the awe and curiosity of the impromptu crowd invariably on the ground before the balloon, and reluctantly leaving it only when the last whiff of gas is rolled out of it and the last rope thrown into the wagon ”

“ Cincinnati feet have a troublesome time under a Rob Roy's low deck. We assented, stretched our rubber blankets, spread our woollens, adjusted the Betsy's long mosquito-bar and crawled carefully under it in expectation of a glorious sleep under the stars and the pines; but the dreams of the Hattie's captain, the trombonings of the Betsy's nose, the tossings of the Fritz and the savage industry of the mosquitos drove anything but troubled sleep from our eyelids, and we welcomed the early "Ho! ho! ho!" and improvised gong of the irrepressible Kawaybawgo. ”

“ After descending some sixty or seventy feet you suddenly bump against an old stone doorway, and you are at the bottom. But on passing the doorway your position is even worse, as the stagnant pools of muddy water reach up to your knees, and the passages are too low to admit of your standing upright, while you stretch your taper into a thick darkness that closes over everything a few yards distant and prevents your seeing anything but the horizontal niches in tiers, one above the other, where the mortal remains of the beatific lie surrounded by the symbols of the faith they died for. ”

“ In personal appearance Halleck was rather below the medium height and well built: in walking he had a rather slow and shuffling gait, as if something afflicted his feet; a florid, bland and pleasant countenance; a bright gray eye; was remarkably pleasant and courteous in conversation, and, as a natural consequence, much beloved by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. But to that brilliancy in conversation which some of his admirers have been pleased to attribute to him in my opinion he could lay no claim. His library was sold at auction in New York on the evening of October 12, 1868. ”

“ Many are the hours I have passed in the remote ones lying miles away from the Eternal City, where the only available entrance was a tortuous, chimney-like hole almost filled with rubbish, and so insignificant in appearance that it had remained concealed by a few bushes from the time it was last used by the blessed martyrs themselves till to-day.
"To descend this aperture, signor, one struggles along with much difficulty: lying on one's chest, and with a lighted taper in one hand, the other holding a rope that has been made fast to a tree outside, one slides down by degrees feet foremost. ”

“ From the walls of the second story—if you wish to view the wide-extended prospect to the south you must clamber there—you can look across three thousand acres of salt marsh to Fernandina and St. Mary's, along the river and beach, across miles of ocean. Ivy climbs the corner wall of the ruins and covers garden-wall and trees. Ruin everywhere stares you in the face: on every side are deserted fields and gardens—fields that employed the labor of four hundred negroes; fields that were fertile and yielded large crops of the famous "Sea-Island cotton." ”