Robert Winter

“ There was a distant connection between the families of Winters and Selwyn, which served as a plea for frequent and familiar intercourse. Rose called him Cousin Robert, and under that name he was received as a sort of privileged guest at her father’s house. The farmer always welcomed him; and Rose chatted and laughed and flirted with him, until at last the flirtation ended in a serious attachment. Mr. Winters, with all his habitual foresight, had not looked for this result. ”

“ Winter was a very ordinary person; rather pretentious, rather too fluent of speech, inclined to fretfulness, and probably of trying temper. Having for many years lived much beyond his means (in the manner so often described by Morphew) , Mr. Winter had left his family as good as unprovided for. There was money to be divided between mother and daughter, but so small a sum that it could not be regarded as a source of income. To the widow was bequeathed furniture; to Henrietta, a library of two thousand volumes ”

“ Where he steps, the ground turns to rock and plants bow their heads to the earth.
All the animals flee before him and hide in caves and hollow trees. The children leave their happy play and sit shivering by the wigwam fire.
One day old Winter looked about him. He saw no life in field or forest. The wind raged, and the drifts almost hid the lodges of the Indians.
"The world is conquered; I am the only king," said giant Winter. He sat alone in his lodge. The fire was white with ashes, and the tempest howled. ”

“ We are so like one family that I feel as if it ought to be good news to you all. And now,' looking towards Lady Winter, 'what do you all say? Shall we sit out on the lawn until tea? It is just pleasant now.'
'If you ask me, I should like nothing better,' said Lady Winter, rising gracefully.
'But where is he—Tom, I mean?' said Lady Elton, as they went out. 'I heard he had come back from town.'
'Reginald has carried him off for a smoke and a chat,' said Lady Winter. 'I expect they will join us presently. But young men will have their quiet hour in the evening.'
'I see them!' cried Trixy. ”

“ We are at a loss to imagine what sort of an impression our rustic heroine, Rose Winters, has made on the minds of our readers, from her unceremonious introduction to them through the foregoing dialogue: but at all events, she is deserving of a more detailed description. She was the daughter of a respectable farmer on Long Island, who resided in a country village, situated on the Atlantic ocean, and near a large seaport town. Mr. Winters was a shrewd, practical man, of strong natural powers of mind, and excellent plain common sense. ”

“ The Winters left early. She was enjoying herself so much, Lady Winter said, that she could stay all night; but she was bound not to keep late hours. She was going to have some visitors—one in particular, whom she believed they would like to meet, and she mentioned an early day for tea at their house, begging Lady Elton to come too, and to bring Maud and dear little Trixy with her.
To her son she said as they walked home: 'A little of that kind of thing goes a long way. I wonder if those dear good people will ever learn to be rich?'
'Tom won't. He is a regular muff,' said Sir Reginald. ”

“ KING FROST AND KING WINTER Margaret T. Canby
King Winter lives in a very strong palace near the cold North Pole; it is built of great blocks of thick ice, and all around it stand high, pointed icebergs, and cross, white bears keep guard at the gate. He has many little fairy servants to do his bidding and they are like their master, cross and spiteful, and seldom do any kind actions, so that few are found who love them. King Winter is rich and powerful, but he keeps all his wealth so tightly locked up that it does no one any good ”

“ I sat smoking quietly while Winter told the story of our adventure. He listened most attentively.
"It's a most extraordinary story," he remarked, when the narrative was concluded. "You are quite sure neither of you touched any of that port?" [40]
Winter turned one of his pockets inside out with an expressive gesture.
"Wine may rob a man of his wits," he replied, "but it does not relieve him of fifty pounds in notes, six in gold, a watch and chain worth fifty, and a diamond which has been valued at a hundred." ”

“ Winter, wiping his [Pg 111] forehead, "I wonder what induced me to prose away about an unfortunate hump-backed organist to a moustached man of fashion; I am a great fool!"
"Mr. Winter," said I, gravely, "you must think moustaches and fashion terrible petrifiers of the heart, if you imagine such a tale as you have just sketched could excite no interest or sympathy in mine; believe me, there are few so thoroughly good for nothing, and I trust I am not in the minority." ”

“ Ugh! how cold I feel!”
“You’ll be better soon,” said Johannes. “You have not had time yet to feel the good of your coat.”
“What good can that do me when I’m not well?” grumbled Steve. “Hullo! you’ve got on yours.”
“Yes, sir; and it’s very welcome. The air is very cold to-night.”
“Freezing?”
“Yes, sir, hard. I daresay we shall find the fiord covered with ice in the morning. Winter is coming, sir, you see.”
“Oh, but this is only a night frost that will go away in the sun quite early.” ”

“ His aunt, herself in limited circumstances, by a careful husbandry of her means, managed to keep him at college. Kenyon was then a manual-labor institution, and the boys were required to sweep their own rooms, make their own beds and fires, bring their own water, black their own boots, if they ever were blacked, and take an occasional turn at grubbing in the fields or working on the roads. There was no royal road to learning known at Kenyon in those days. Through all this Henry Winter Davis passed, bearing his part manfully ”

“ North Wind is the only friend of Old Man Winter. When he passes near Old Man Winter's lodge, he gives a loud shriek, and with his blustering breath he blows open the door and enters.
Near a fire which glows, but does not warm, North Wind finds a seat. There he and Old Man Winter sit and smoke, and lay their plans for the next snowstorm.
When the council is ended, North [Pg 160] Wind departs, to drive up the snow and hail from the corners of the earth.
Old Man Winter also leaves his lodge. He stalks over the mountains and valleys of the Red Children. The land becomes white with his breath. ”

“ Etchingham gives a slight start, but George Winter remains perfectly cool.
George Winter.
My dear fellow, you don’t suppose I stole it, do you? That’s where the born financier comes in. He makes money as a conjurer makes a white rabbit appear out of a silk handkerchief.
James Ford. ”

“ This is the personification of Winter. With him goes a younger beardless man dressed in white, wearing a straw hat trimmed with gay ribbons on his head, and carrying a decorated May-tree in his hands. This is Summer. At every house they receive a friendly greeting and recite a long dialogue in verse, Winter punctuating his discourse with his flail, which he brings down with rude vigour on the backs of all within reach.704 Amongst the Slavonic population near Ungarisch Brod, in Moravia, the ceremony took a somewhat different form. ”

“ Last of all, I'm feeling particularly joyful for the sake of Chester, because after this, Bob, I expect you'll be in trim to play the game of your life this morning against Harmony Tigers."
"Just you watch my smoke, that's all, Jack. Why, I feel as if I could do almost anything, I'm that full of ginger and snap and happiness. The cobwebs have all been swept clear from my brain, and Robert is himself again. If I don't do Chester credit today just take my head for a football, and boot it, that's what. ”

“ To sit in the great hall of that mansion, on a winter midnight, when the snow-laden wind is howling around it, and then to think of the bleak, sinister oratory, and the stealthy, gliding shapes upstairs, invisible to mortal eye, but felt, with a shuddering sense of some unseen presence watching in the dark,—this would be to have quite a sufficient experience of a haunted house. ”

“ King Winter sat upon his iceberg throne, and waving his scepter, a huge icicle, called for all the Snow Fairies and Frost Fairies to draw near, as he wished to see them.
“Tell me, Snow Fairies,” said King Winter, “what have you been doing of late; have you made anybody happy by your work?” ”

“ Rumor began to scratch and tear at Sên King-lo, and it did not leave Ivy Gilbert quite unscotched—though, for a time, it left her unsmirched.
It was winter now, and November winds rattled leafless branches at Arlington and on the hillside woods above old Fort Totten’s star-shaped embankments and cherished parapets. The Potomac crawled gray and sullen between ice-scummed shores. If gossip and scandal are rampant in the capital’s summer-time, in winter they flourish like upas trees and leap to maturity and detail like the Indian conjurer’s mango tree. ”

“ Without ado Winters put on all speed and plunged across the sands. And then:
It was much like winking; but for all that something far more impressive. To Winters, on the left hand of the car and with the east on the right hand, it was much as if the sun had suddenly leaped up and as suddenly plumped down behind the horizon—a vast vividness of scintillating opalescence: an azure, naming diamond shot by a million fire points.
Instantaneous and beautiful. In the pale dawn of the desert air its wonder and color were beyond all beauty. Winters caught it out of the corner of his eye ”

“ Day after day he or his secretary or his son, who had been a prisoner of war in England, took me out to see in particular what was being done for the children. Dr. Winter is always spoken of as “the children’s Mayor,” for the children are his very serious concern. In his company I saw the public feeding centres of the Americans, the clinics supervised by the Friends, the children’s hospitals so sadly lacking funds, the open-air play-centres in the public parks, and the country schools. The houses of rich nobles who have fled and the palaces of the ex-Kaiser were used for this purpose. ”

“ Surely a day that had opened in such a glorious manner for Big Bob, and the team in general, could not have bitterness and gall in store for those gallant Chester fellows who expected to improve upon their work in Marshall, and tear a victory on the gridiron from Harmony's team.
Jack occupied himself in various ways until it was time for him to sally forth and join his band at the rendezvous. Then in good time they would head for the field, where they might expect to see a perfect mob awaiting their coming. ”

“ Floating in upon her disturbed mind came a certain rude epigram which she had heard in the kitchen years ago when, a tiny girl, she was playing about the door, and had remembered because it struck her as being funny: "All men's tar off de same stick."
"True!" said Mrs. Meeks bitterly, the tears falling now without disguise. "Men are all alike. I thought Robert was different. And our life together was to be a heaven upon earth? Well, this is the end of it all. I cannot stand his temper—I will not stand it!" ”

“ What can exceed the dazzling splendour of a rising sun, on the trees and bushes, after a night of rain and freezing, when every branch appears like a shining crystal? A prospect grand indeed!
The severe frosts of Winter, with the agitated atmosphere, dispel the sickening fumes which arise from heated and stagnant pools, and decaying vegetation.
This gives health and vigour to the body, and an it were, new spring to thought. Who but has observed the lively sensations of body and mind on a clear frosty morning in winter? ”

“ Their boys were really novices at the business, and it was to be expected, they reasoned, trying to bolster up their waning courage, that at first things would hit the Chester line hard. But just wait a bit, until they began to recover their wind, and Jack Winters was given a fair chance to unmask some of his hidden batteries. "He laughs longest who laughs last," was a saying with a good deal of truth behind it; and anyhow the game was very young yet. Besides, Marshall hadn't scored, after all, it seemed. ”

“ Winter's was certainly a curious turn out, with a huge basket tied on the back seat, leaving a narrow ledge for Tom to perch on; Winter himself in a broad brimm'd straw hat, the [Pg 189] expression of his features completely changed (by the total eclipse of his eyes under green goggles) into one of preternatural gravity and pre-occupation, sitting bolt upright, and considerably in the middle of the carriage, leaving small space for Miss Vernon, and terribly embarrassed with the reins. ”

“ Mr. Winter offers you higher terms, and a comfortable home, and—"
"Och! what have I done, that ye should think I'm not desarvin' iv being wid yez, in throuble? Is id at this time of day ye want to be tould that I'd lave thousands to beg through the world wid yez—lave ye! och, where would I go? Sure yez the whole world to ould nurse! Lave ye, an ye in throuble. Oh! what have I done that ye [92] would spake that way to me?" And covering her face in the folds of her cloak—poor nurse sobbed aloud! ”

“ Etchingham.
But will you be able to go to allotment?
George Winter.
Of course we shall. This article isn’t going to do us any harm. I shall win the seat. That’ll give these Middlepool people confidence.
Etchingham.
George, I believe Ford is uneasy. I don’t trust him. Supposing he found out about the bonds?
George Winter.
It might be devilish expensive.
Etchingham.
You’ll never buy him.
George Winter.
I never met the man yet who hadn’t his price. Flattery if he’s a fool, hard cash if he’s a wise man. But a price of some sort. There’s always a price. ”

“ Winters intervened.
“If a charwoman is all you've been waiting for, Paul, I dare say you'd find a lot of them about the building at this very moment.”
“Have you turned against me, sir?” said Traver.
“Paul, my boy,” said Mr. Winters, putting his hand on his clerk's shoulder, “to be honest, I was never exactly for you. I gave you a chance, that's all. To tell the truth, your outlook has always been a little too elderly to suit a man of seventy-one. I like a man who has some what we used to call at home get-up-and-git about him. ”