Galashiels

“ Then it seems to have passed into the family of Walter Turnbull, schoolmaster of Melrose, who disposed of it, in the year 1797, to Dr. Robert Douglas, the enterprising and philanthropic minister of Galashiels. Why Dr. Douglas purchased this property nobody has been able to understand. It lay outside his parish, and was never regarded as a desirable or dignified possession. A shrewd man of business, however, he may, like Scott, have judged it capable of results, speculating accordingly. ”

“ Then comes Darnick, with its fine peel, now open to the public, and well worth a visit. At the fork of the roads (that to the right leading by Melrose Bridge to Gattonside and Galashiels) we turn leftwards, and are soon at the visitors' entrance (a modest wicket-gate) to the great Scottish Mecca. But nothing is to be seen yet. Mr. Hope Scott's plantations and 'ingenious tourist arrangement' [170] screen the pile with wonderful completeness. And it is only when within a few paces of the building, at a turn in the lane leading from the highway, that all at once one emerges upon it. ”

“ So I have made the old farm-house my corps de logis with some outlying places for kitchen, laundry, and two spare bedrooms, which run along the east wall of the farm-court, not without some picturesque effect. A perforated cross, the spoils of the old kirk of Galashiels, decorates an advanced door, and looks very well.' Not much was done during the next two years, but in November, 1816, a new set of improvements was under consideration. Abbotsford was rapidly losing its cottage character. The 'romance' period was begun. ”

“ Even profanation of the fine chair has not roused her. She takes up her knitting, and they all suspect that she knows what they have been talking about.]
MAGGIE. You’re late, David, it’s nearly bed-time.
DAVID [finding the subject a safe one] . I was kept late at the public meeting.
ALICK [glad to get so far away from Galashiels] . Was it a good meeting?
DAVID. Fairish. [with some heat] That young John Shand WOULD make a speech.
MAGGIE. John Shand? Is that the student Shand? ”

“ It is these melodies, chanted in our ears in the days of infancy, and connected with the memory of those we have loved, and who have passed away, that clothe Scottish landscape with such tender associations....
'Our ramble took us on the hills, commanding an extensive prospect. "Now," said Scott, "I have brought you, like the pilgrim in the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' to the top of the Delectable Mountains, that I may show you all the goodly regions hereabouts. Yonder is Lammermoor and Smailholm; and there you have Galashiels, and Torwoodlee, and Gala Water ”

“ ALTHOUGH many kinds of gazelles are now known, the gazelle par excellence, that is to say, the ghazal of the Arabs, is the beautiful little species represented in the Plate, which, in order to distinguish it from its relatives, naturalists have designated the dorcas. And no more beautiful and delicately made creature exists in the world than this same gazelle, which has formed the theme of poets—especially in the East—for centuries, as the emblem of beauty, elegance, and fleetness. ”

“ The Galaesus?—the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing a famous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected by a garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters of Magna Graecia have much diminished since classic times, but (unless there have been great local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake) this brook had always the same length, and it is hard to think of the Galaesus as so insignificant. Disappointed, brooding, I followed the current seaward, and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and rosemary, sat down to rest. ”

“ A little farther to the left, and just across the garden from us wedged in a narrow opening, lies the village of Galesville, on Beaver creek,—a branch of Black river,—with its exquisitely beautiful lake, and bounding fish, its fine water power, health giving mineral springs, Galesville University and choice people. “Beautiful for situation” is Galesville, the joy of all its inhabitants, if not of all the earth. ”

“ The gazelle is also very fond of crisply-toasted bread, a taste which must be acquired in domestication. It is a courageous animal, and will come readily to the assault, butting fiercely when attacked. In taking a gazelle away from Arabia, it should be carefully guarded against cold and damp, and if not provided with water-proof covering to its feet, would soon die if exposed to the wet decks of a ship.
We had lost at Aden our fellow-passenger, whom I have mentioned as having assumed the Turkish dress for the purpose of penetrating into the interior of Abyssinia. ”

“ A herd of above a hundred gazelles is seized with a panic at the sudden rising of a bird, or the mere stirring of a leaf. If the hound but approaches the gazelle, it throws itself upon its back with its legs up and looks at one with such a pitiful expression out of its lustrous melancholy eyes, that one cannot help feeling for the poor dumb animal. As my eyes were following the flight of the gazelles, I suddenly caught sight of a mirage rising in the south-east. These deceptive illusions of the air are by no means of infrequent occurrence in the Persian plain. ”

“ Haamdaanee did as the gazelle bade him. The princess was told that the little animal was to set out immediately and would put all in order at the palace, so she was willing to wait a while longer before seeing her husband’s treasures.
The gazelle at once started out on its journeyings. It ran on and on for several days, and then it came to another city even handsomer than that of the king, but when it entered the streets everything was silent and [93] deserted. There was not a soul to be seen. ”

“ We can provide against everything but the craving for change. Not being birds to fly, and unable to compel the eagles to lend us their wings, the best resort is a galley; then the sea is ours—the sea, wide, mysterious, crowded with marvels. I am never so near the stars as there. When a wave is bearing me up, they seem descending to meet me. Times have been when I thought the Pleiades were about to drop into my palm.... Here is my galley. You see, child, the palace is to be yours, the galley mine. ”

“ Black luminous eyes are beautiful, and wives keep in their tents a little deer, the gazelle, which is famous for the brilliancy and beauty of its eyes. By constantly looking at this charming pet the Arab wife hopes to bring into the world some day a child with eyes as beautiful as the eyes of the gazelle. Well, the highest function of art ought to do for us, or at least for the world, what the statue and the gazelle were expected to do for Grecian and Arab mothers—to make possible higher conditions than the existing ones. ”

“ For Galusha was wild with enthusiasm. Scrambling amid the rocks, wading or tumbling into the frigid waters of mountain streams, sleeping anywhere or not sleeping, all these hardships were of no consequence whatever compared with the thrill which came with the first glimpse of, high up under the bulging brow of an overhanging cliff, a rude wall and a cluster of half ruined dwellings sticking to the side of the precipice as barn swallows' nests are plastered beneath eaves. ”

“ Now Sir Galahad had as yet no shield, and he rode four days without meeting any adventure, till at last he came to a White Abbey, where he dismounted and asked if he might sleep there that night. The brethren received him with great reverence, and led him to a chamber, where he took off his armour, and then saw that he was in the presence of two Knights. “Sirs,” said Sir Galahad, “what adventure brought you hither?” “Sir,” replied they, “we heard that within this Abbey is a shield that no man may hang round his neck without being dead within three days, or some mischief befalling him. ”

“ The Gallas, like the Danakil, and the Danakil, like the Somauli and Gallas, are a pastoral people—pastoral, locomotive, wild, and intractable—with manners that remind us of the Arab of Asia, the Kaffre of Southern Africa, or of the Berber of the Desert of Sahara; and it is these whom they resemble, more or less closely, in their forms—more or less closely in their social constitution. Like all such populations, they fall into numerous tribes, each under the influence of their chief; with the spirit of blood, or pedigree, running strong amongst them. ”

“ If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?'"
S. W. Singer.
GOLOSHES. (Vol. ix., p. 304.)
This word, Seleucus says, "is of course of American derivation." By no means: it is found in German, gallosche or gallusche; and in French, galoche or galloche. The word itself most likely comes to us from the French. The dictionaries refer to Spenser as using it under the form galage; and it occurs written galege, galosh, calosh, &c. The French borrowed the term from the Latin Gallicæ; but the Romans first derived the idea and the thing itself from Gaul, Gallicæ denoting Gallic or Gaulish shoes. ”

“ We have not space to follow M. Thierry in his account of the progress and fall of that strange Gaulish kingdom of Galatia. From the year 241 to the year 190 B.C., it maintained its independence unshaken, amidst the degenerate sons of Greece and the effeminate Asiatics. But the Roman power, beneath which the Gaulish race was ever doomed to bend, overtook them even amidst the mountains of Asia Minor. The Galatians had furnished some troops to Antiochus the Great, and then, for the first time, they came in contact with the eagle of the Capitol. ”

“ Then the hermit waked Sir Galahad and bade him rise, as a gentlewoman had great need of him, so Sir Galahad rose and asked her what she wished. 'Galahad,' said she, 'I will that you arm yourself, and mount your horse and follow me, and I will show you the highest adventure that ever any Knight saw.' And Sir Galahad bade her go, and he would follow wherever she led. In three days they reached the sea, where they found the ship where Sir Bors and Sir Percivale were lying. ”

“ On the anniversary of Galahad's crowning the three see before the holy vessel a man clad like a Bishop, who begins mass and calls Galahad to see what he has so longed to see, and at the sight Galahad trembles very greatly, and he thanks God for letting him see that which tongue may not describe nor heart think, and he begs that he may pass away from this earthly life to the heavenly one. ”

“ And when they saw Galahad they cried, "Knight, defend thyself, for we assure thee nothing but death."
Then Galahad put forth his spear, and smote the foremost to the earth. And therewith all the others smote him on his shield great strokes so that their spears brake. Then Sir Galahad drew out his sword, and set upon them so hard that it was marvel to see it, and so, through great force, he made them to forsake the field. Galahad chased them till they entered into the castle, and then passed through the castle and out at another gate. ”

“ I think the gazelle we killed was identical with the antelope of our western plains. He had a skin of the same color and a white tail, that retreating flag-of-truce so familiar to our overland emigrants. His feet, head, and body were shaped like the antelope’s, and his eye had that liquid tenderness so often observed in the agile rover near the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Gazelles abound through the Amoor valley to within a hundred miles of the sea-coast. Many are killed every autumn and winter in the valley of the Zeya and along the middle Amoor. ”

“ I accordingly employed an Arab to lead a camel, under cover of which I could generally manage to approach within a hundred yards. A buck gazelle weighs from sixty to seventy pounds, and is the perfection of muscular development. No person who has seen the gazelles in confinement in a temperate climate can form an idea of the beauty of the animal in its native desert. Born in the scorching sun, nursed on the burning sand of the treeless and shadowless wilderness, the gazelle is among the antelope tribe as the Arab horse is among its brethren, the high-bred and superlative beauty of the race. ”

“ Galatia, a high-lying Roman province in Asia Minor that had been invaded and taken possession of by a horde of Gauls in the 3rd century B.C., whence the name.
Galatians, Epistle to the, an epistle of St. Paul to the churches in Galatia, which was an especial favourite with Luther, as, with its doctrine of spiritual freedom in Christ, it might well be, for it corroborated the great revelation first made to him by a neighbour monk; "man is not saved by singing masses, but by the grace of God" ”

“ I judged that this galley, which was under sail when first sighted, had come out from Cartagena in search of us, and from the fact that she did not at once bear down upon us, but hung persistently to windward, I conjectured that she was not alone, that she had one or more consorts somewhere to windward, and that, upon fully identifying the galleon, she would lower her sails, out sweeps, and be off to windward for help to tackle us. ”

“ On the death of the third king Amyntas in 25 B.C., Galatia was incorporated by Augustus in the Roman empire, and few of the provinces were more enthusiastically loyal.
The population of Galatia was not entirely Gallic. Before the arrival of the Gauls, western Galatia up to the Halys was inhabited by Phrygians, and eastern Galatia by Cappadocians and other native races. This native population remained, and constituted the majority of the inhabitants of the rural parts and almost the sole inhabitants of the towns. ”