Sat

“ The brisk electric condition of the air may account for the animation of the people, both native and foreign residents, who are always stirring, except at noon, and always cheerful. Despite the exhilarating atmosphere, to breathe which is a perfect delight, there is a universal cessation of active business at noon, (though morning is early devoted to work, and evening to recreation,) as the siesta imperatively asserts its claims, and everybody retires for an hour or two to couch or hammock. ”

“ It is six o’clock on a glorious summer’s morning; the lazy monks fade away like the shadows of the night, and leave me in Covent Garden, and in high market. Every morning during the summer may be called market morning; but in the winter the special mornings are Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. It is a strange sight then in the winter blackness to see the gas glimmering among huge piles of vegetables hoisted high on carts, and slowly moving like Birnam Woods coming to a Dunsinane of marketdom. When the snow is on the ground, or when the rain it raineth, the glare of lights and black shadows ”

“ The Shropshire Windmill.
Thursday.—Some people inclined to regard as sufficient an arrangement that keeps them sitting day after day from three o'clock in afternoon to midnight listening to talk about Parish Councils. Others want a little more. Channing suggests House shall sit on Saturdays, and, on four days a week, shall commence business at noon, putting in a twelve hour day. ”

“ You see, Saturday night is a leisure night in counting-houses and such-like places, while it’s the busiest of all for servants. Well! it was a Saturday night, and I’d my baize apron on, and the tails of my bed-gown pinned together behind, down on my knees, pipeclaying the kitchen, when a knock comes to the back door. ”

“ It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did it. ”

“ Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference to the foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights' sensations. ”

“ After luncheon the sun, conscious that it was Saturday, would blaze an hour longer in the zenith, and when some one, thinking that we were late in starting for our walk, said, "What, only two o'clock!" ”

“ Several sailors, men on small coasting ships, who were working up or down the Channel on that Saturday night, spoke of "seeing" the red light, and it must be said that there is a very tolerable agreement in their tales. All make the time as between midnight of the Saturday and one o'clock on the Sunday morning. ”

“ Up, and all day at the office, but a little at dinner, and there late till past 12. So home to bed, pleased as I always am after I have rid a great deal of work, it being very satisfactory to me. ”

“ The poetry of mere day and of late summer becomes perceptible to mature eyes that have long ceased to be sated, have taken leave of weariness, and cannot now find anything in nature too familiar; eyes which have, indeed, lost sight of the further awe of midsummer daybreak, and no longer see so much of the past in April twilight as they saw when they had no past; but which look freshly at the dailiness of green summer, of early afternoon, of every sky of any form that comes to pass, and of the darkened elms. ”

“ Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everybody else is asleep? Late—it is very late! And yet every moment you feel more and more wakeful, as though you were slowly, almost with every breath, waking up into a new, wonderful, far more thrilling and exciting world than the daylight one. And what is this queer sensation that you’re a conspirator? Lightly, stealthily you move about your room. You take something off the dressing-table and put it down again without a sound. And everything, even the bed-post, knows you, responds, shares your secret.... ”

“ But to-night the sun dies under the western sea, and an azure which is neither light nor darkness, fills the void. The stars discover through it their happy images below, and our throbbing oars—oars no longer, but living light—rival the pulsations of the stars. ”

“ I’ll talk to you after supper. I can take more interest when my work is off my mind. You’ve no prejudice against hot biscuit for supper? Some have, these days.’
While I was putting my horse away, I heard a rooster squawking. I looked at my watch and sighed; it was three o’clock, and I knew that I must eat him at six.
After supper Mrs. Steavens and I went upstairs to the old sitting-room, while her grave, silent brother remained in the basement to read his farm papers. All the windows were open. The white summer moon was shining outside, the windmill was pumping lazily in the light breeze. ”

“ Tarzan crept stealthily among the branches of the tree above the well-fed, self-satisfied witch-doctor. He made no noise that the dull ears of man could hear above the soughing of the gentle jungle breeze among the undulating foliage of the upper terraces, and when he came close above the black man he halted, well concealed by leafy branch and heavy creeper. ”

“ They seem like rains, distant whispers, and peace is upon every thing, sweet, sweet peace — like that one feels for a few moments just before falling into sleep, when things are seen and felt like shadows — without fear, without love, without emotion. Peace that one feels alone, surrounded with statues and pictures — I come! Lord, I come!
The world is, but not beautiful nor ugly, but as sensations without exciting any emotion. Oh, Joe, the blessedness of it! Everything is good and beautiful; for things are all losing their relative proportions to me — my body among the first. ”

“ But why, the inquisitive may ask—the child-man who is for ever cutting up the bellows to discover the reservoir of the wind—why four o’clock a.m.? Why not begin our pilgrimage at one a.m., and finish the first half at midnight, in the orthodox get-up-and-go-to-bed manner? [11] Simply because four a.m. is in reality the first hour of the working London day. The giant is wide awake at midnight; he sinks into a fitful slumber about two in the morning: short is his rest, for at four he is up again and at work, the busiest bee in the world’s hive. ”

“ Once I felt the great weight of one of the monsters upon my back and as keen talons sank into my flesh I experienced the frightful sensation of moist lips sucking the lifeblood from the wounds to which the claws still clung. ”

“ The orange hue of the western horizon remains till ten o'clock, at least, and how much later I am unable to say. The night before last, I could distinguish letters by this lingering gleam between nine and ten o'clock. The dawn, I suppose, shows itself as early as two o'clock, so that the absolute dominion of night has dwindled to almost nothing. There seems to be also a diminished necessity, or, at all events, a much less possibility, of sleep than at other periods of the year. I get scarcely any sound repose just now. It is summer, and not winter, that steals away mortal life. ”

“ Eleven o’clock at night is the great supper-time of the working classes; then, by the steady and industrious mechanic, the final calumet is smoked, the borrowed newspaper read, the topics of the day, the prospects of the coming week, discussed with the cheery and hard-working helpmate who sits by the side of her horny-handed lord, fills his pipe, pours out his beer, and darns the little children’s hose. ”

“ Yes; this wonderful "ball of light"—so bright that the brightest light we know of looks dull when held up before its dazzling face—is ever, night and day, sending out rays of light and heat, like streams from an overflowing fountain, always making daylight somewhere. When you lie down in your bed, and settle yourself to sleep sound till morning, your little cousins in Australia and New Zealand are just beginning to sit up in theirs, and to rub their eyes, and think it will soon be breakfast time; and in the evening, when their day is done, yours will be just beginning again. ”

“ Now, the exact time of the day at the place where we are, can be ascertained by well known and easy observations of the Sun if visible for a few minutes at any time from his being ten degrees high until within an hour of noon, or from an hour after noon until he is only 10 degrees high in the afternoon; if therefore, at any time when such observation is made, a Timekeeper tells us at the same moment what o'clock it is at the place we sailed from, our Longitude is clearly discovered. ”

“ We go to bed at ten o'clock. Late hours are life-shortening things, but I would rather run all risks, and sit every night—at some places I could name—wishing in vain at eleven o'clock for the entrance of the supper tray, than be always up and alive at eight o'clock breakfast as I am here. We have a scheme to reconcile these things. We have an offer of a very low-rented lodging a mile nearer town than this. Our notion is to divide our time in alternate weeks between quiet rest and dear London weariness. ”

“ This was the clock which, with few intervals, measured out by hours the life of Daniel Dove from the seventeenth year of his age, when he first set up his rest within its sound.
Perhaps of all the works of man sun-dials and church-clocks are those which have conveyed most feeling to the human heart; the clock more than the sun-dial because it speaks to the ear as well as to the eye, and by night as well as by day. Our forefathers understood this, and therefore they not only gave a Tongue to Time, but provided that he should speak often to us and remind us that the hours are passing. ”

“ The countenance of French genius, even when frowning in anger, is beautiful; that of German genius, even when beaming with smiles, appears frightful, as it were. French civilisation is full of nerve, like camphor or musk — it volatilises and pervades the room in a moment; while German civilisation is full of muscle, heavy like lead or mercury — it remains motionless and inert wherever it lies. The German muscle can go on striking small blows untiringly, till death; the French have tender, feminine bodies, but when they do concentrate and strike, it is a sledge-hammer blow and is irresistible. ”

“ The time of sitting is upon any day in the morning, except on Sundays, or some other high festivals or fast days, upon which it is not usual to assemble, unless upon the most urgent occasions: but tho’ the Speaker always adjourns the house to nine o’clock of the morning of the day when they agree to meet again, the house seldom meets till twelve. ”

“ Every hour differs from the last. There is a time just between three o’clock and five when all the vibrations of the earth change. It seems the good-bye of the night and the awakening of the day. Day holds night in some subtle, lingering embrace that will not let go until the very gray of the dawn drives the reluctant darkness from the earth. ”

“ If you'll put in a peg on the circle that Dan'l whitewashed, exactly at the place where the shadow touches when it is one o'clock, two o'clock and so forth on your watch, the watch having been made to agree with the shadow at noon, your sun-dial will be right all the year, round. You don't need to mark anything earlier than four in the morning or later than eight in the evening, as even on the longest day, here, the sun does not rise before that time nor set after it. ”

“ Waking-up-in-the-morning time is rather tempting, too, particularly in summer, when the sun comes in at the windows so brightly and the birds are so lively, chattering away to each other, and all the world is up and about, except "us," who have to stay in bed till seven o'clock! ”

“ I was in hopes that I should be allowed to go, too, nine o'clock being the hour when we had been sent to bed at the workhouse. I accordingly folded up my work and went into the parlour.
'Well, what do you want?' said Mrs. Smith.
'If you please, ma'am, may I have my supper and go to bed?'
'Supper and go to bed!' exclaimed she. 'Pretty talk for a workhouse girl! No, miss, you will have no supper. Three meals a day are enough for you, I should think; and as for bed, you will not go till your master comes home, and that will not be till twelve o'clock. ”

“ Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morning; totter down stairs in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer of one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven o’clock outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh takes you up and carries you on, and you reach the top of the ascent in the first hour of the day. ”

“ As the morning light comes in through- 81 - the windows, it is strange to see the effect of diffused daylight, electricity, and gas—the bluish light of early morning reflected on the flesh tones—upon nearly three thousand girls and students in costumes one might expect to see in a bacchanalian feast, just before the fall of Rome. ”

“ We awake, look at our watch, see “four o’clock”; it is only four o’clock in the morning, but we imagine that the whole day has gone by, so vividly does this nap of a few minutes, unsought by us, appear to have come down to us from the skies, by virtue of some divine right, full-bodied, vast, like an Emperor’s orb of gold. ”

“ The First watch (8 o’clock to midnight) which comes after the labour of the day is done, and when every thing is hushed and still, carries with it this great recommendation, that, although the hour of going to bed is deferred, the night’s rest is not afterwards broken in upon. The prospect of ‘turning in’ at midnight, and being allowed to sleep till seven in the morning, helps greatly to keep us alive and merry during the First watch, and prevents the excitement of the past day from ebbing too fast. ”