Holiday

“ You know how it goes on a holiday—the holiday, that is, of a man to whom holidays are rare and very blessed. For the first day your mind has not yet freed itself from town and toil and the hundred other interests for which they stand. ”

“ A half-holiday every week would be a mighty boon to the working man who has acquired a taste for the quiet pleasures of intellect, and either cultivates an affection for natural objects, or, according to the antiquary, "loves to look upon what is old." My recollections of this rich tract of country, with its woods, and towers, and noble river, seem as if bathed in the red light of gorgeous sunsets. ”

“ Day dies out. Far away, behind the gardens of the Résidence, lingers a glimmer of the departing sun, red in the fog; and in the town is such gaiety, such hurry of preparation for the holiday, that each jet of light which springs up in the many windows seems to hang from some vast Christmas-tree. ”

“ CHAPTER V. A MEMORABLE HOLIDAY. Provided a school-boy is blessed with a happy home and kind friends," commenced Hall, "there is no one in the world who looks forward to a holiday with so much pleasure, or enjoys it so thoroughly. When the time draws near that he is to leave school-life for a season, how old Father Time seems to lag on his journey, as if he had grown tired, or lame, or had met with an accident and was delayed on the way, so slowly does the wished-for day come. ”

“ And it amused me to tears to think how this little child dared to fight the giant world of necessity with no other resource than those few words, "Father, you must not go!"
12
Take your holiday, my boy; there are the blue sky and the bare field, the barn and the ruined temple under the ancient tamarind.
My holiday must be taken through yours, finding light in the dance of your eyes, music in your noisy shouts.
To you autumn brings the true holiday freedom: to me it brings the impossibility of work; for lo! you burst into my room.
Yes, my holiday is an endless freedom for love to disturb me. ”

“ WHAT MAKES A HOLIDAY?
What is it makes a holiday? Some people want Paris, some Monte Carlo, one man cannot be satisfied without big game to hunt, another must have a grouse moor. The student has his sailing boat, the young wage-earner his bicycle, three girl friends look forward to their week in a Hastings boarding-house. Almost anything may be “a change”; most things, to someone or other, are “a holiday.” ”

“ To-morrow is a holiday, And she, as usual, must them wear Upon her bodice, in her hair. The old crone sits among her mates, Upon the stairs, and spins; And, looking at the fading light, Of good old-fashioned times she prates, When she, too, dressed for holidays, And with light heart, and limb as light, Would dance at night With the companions of her merry days. The twilight shades around us close, The sky to deepest blue is turned; From hills and roofs the shadows fall, And the new moon her face of silver shows. ”

“ For Spring stands, joyous, on the purple brow Of the far hill; and doubt is swept away, And all the mirth-mad world makes holiday! We who have wandered long, and half afraid, Find answer in each dreaming woodland glade ”

“ The stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled winds sped and throbbed over the fields that huddled in mystery and silence on either side of the road—where noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the odours of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling of a thousand feet, proclaimed the People's holiday. ”

“ But in Congreve and in Wycherley all the conventional values are inverted: it is the holiday of the worldly and it has all the exhilaration of a holiday. What could be more gratifying and more cheerful than these husbands and wives who are never faithful, these young men whose intentions are never honourable, these coquettes who never want to marry? ”

“ For the pleasures of a roving life and the excitement of not knowing when you wake what the day may bring forth.”
“It is preferable, at least, to the humdrum holiday of the ordinary tourist.”
“Holiday!” He looked incredulous. “Scarcely a holiday in the sense in which most men understand the term. You are tied, I presume, by no limit of time or means; is it not rather the business of your life now to rove where you will, answerable to no one, cut off from all ties, your very family in total ignorance of your whereabouts?” ”

“ Yonder they dance and play upon the branches of my Tree, God bless them, merrily, and my heart dances and plays too!
And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday—the longer, the better—from the great boarding-school, where we are for ever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest. As to going a visiting, where can we not go, if we will; where have we not been, when we would; starting our fancy from our Christmas Tree! ”

“ Far ends of tired days;
It half endears the abstinence,
And pain is missed in praise.
As flavors cheer retarded guests
With banquetings to be,
So spices stimulate the time
Till my small library.
It may be wilderness without,
Far feet of failing men,
But holiday excludes the night,
And it is bells within.
I thank these kinsmen of the shelf; ”

“ In the coming weeks I have a whole race to feed, and over the length of the world men are imploring my help. They do their little share of work, and while they wait, waking and sleeping, anxiously watching winds and clouds, I vitalise their toil and turn all my forces to their bidding. The labour of the year is at hand and on its threshold I take this holiday. To-day I give you a glimpse of paradise; a garden in which all manner of loveliness blooms simply from the overflow of life, without thought, or care, or toil. ”

“ Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was right and lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over through the beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always a round of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time with us, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether. ”

“ Sometimes a pilgrimage seemed nothing but an excuse for a lively and pleasant holiday, and the travellers often made themselves very merry on the road, with their jests and songs, and their flutes and fiddles and bagpipes. ”

“ The very presence of a lengthened festivity—for festivity can never be solitary—would, apart from its sacred causes, promote these wholesome effects. The extended space of time over which this festival is spread, the protracted holiday which it creates, points it out for the gathering together of distant friends whom the passing nature of an occasional and single celebration would fail to collect from their scattered places of the world. ”

“ You feel that every one who passes by knows and approves of your idea of a holiday, and will quite understand when you ride out on the Champs Élysées at eleven o'clock in the morning with four other men packed in one fiacre, or when, for no apparent reason, you hurl your hat into the air. ”

“ In chalking out a summer holiday trip, one likes to get quite away from the ordinary round of daily life and business. Half the benefits of such a trip consists in getting out of the old ruts, and breathing fresh air amidst new surroundings. ”

“ For men who know how to bear themselves company there are few better ways of improving a holiday, especially a home-keeping, home-coming, family feast, like our autumnal Thanksgiving, than to walk in one’s own childish steps—up through the old cattle pasture behind the old homestead, into the old woods. ”

“ The peculiarity of our attitude towards Christmas, which at worst is a vacation, may be clearly seen by contrasting it with our attitude towards another vacation—the summer holiday. We do not have to brace and force ourselves up to the enjoyment of the summer holiday. ”

“ As the mother-hurries in and out of the room, the excitement of the children grows more and more intense, and the air of mystery pervading the whole house is one of the enjoyable features of the holiday season. ”

“ If it is an exhibition you go to gape at, we never picture you dragging your weary legs from one department to another, and wondering why your back is so sore. Should it be the seaside, we talk heartlessly to you about the "briny," though we must know, if we would stop to think, that if there is one holiday more miserable than all the others, it is that spent at the seaside, when you wander the weary beach and fling pebbles at the sea, and wonder how long it will be till dinner time. ”

“ A country holiday for me had always meant incessant occupation of one kind or another, fishing, climbing, boating, long cycling excursions, and an industrious endeavour to explore all scenes of interest within a reasonable compass. ”

“ We penetrate bodily this incredible beauty; we dip our hands in this painted element; our eyes are bathed in these lights and forms. A holiday, a villeggiatura, a royal revel, the proudest, most heart-rejoicing festival that{209} valor and beauty, power and taste, ever decked and enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. These sunset clouds, these delicately emerging stars, with their private and ineffable glances, signify it and proffer it. ”

“ But far the greater number are in good spirits, showing the influence of holiday enjoyment and mountain air. Fresh roses come to cheeks that long have been pale, and sentiment often begins to blossom under the new inspiration. ”

“ A holiday, we all know, especially in the pure and stimulating air of the mountains, has always a most invigorating and enlivening effect upon the jaded intellect. And Will’s holiday in the Zillerthal had inspired him by degrees with fresh ideas and scenes for a Tyrolese drama. ”

“ Neither rain nor hail, nothing makes any difference, nothing will prevent them from going out, from closing behind them the door of the deserted workshop, of the stuffy little lodging. But when the springtime is come, when the May sunshine glitters on it as this morning, and it can deck itself out in gay colours, then indeed Sunday is the holiday of holidays. ”

“ Every departure, every admission of a scholar, was celebrated with brilliant display; every birthday furnished the opportunity of a feast, and every holiday became the welcomed occasion for a pleasure excursion which the young men on horseback, and followed by their servants in livery, made in the vicinity of Paris. ”

“ Like all the best things in life, the recreation of reading needs a little planning. When we have a holiday in prospect we make plans beforehand so that when the time comes we may know exactly where we want to go, what we want to do, how the holiday is to be spent, and have all our preparations ready. If we do not do that the holiday finds us unprepared and the greater part of it is wasted. So with our spare time, our casual leisure. ”

“ We never go away, either to the country or the sea-side, or have picnics, or parties, or any excitements of that kind. We just stay quietly at home and go on with the usual work, but I am with Mother, you know—that’s my holiday! ”

“ I'm going to take a holiday. More than that; I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm going to ask you to take a walk with me.” ”

“ For a small sum he can get far away from the close and smoky town, to the seaside perhaps, but certainly to the fields and country air; he can make of every fine Sunday in the summer a holiday indeed. ”

“ However, sir, there are other than these holiday times in which to dwell on this dark subject. I ought to apologise for having fallen into it unawares, when I sat down merely to put on paper, if I could in a few lines, and impart to your readers the exceeding freshness of the feeling which the feast-day at this little Belgian watering-place leaves on one. But who knows when he sits down, at any rate in the holidays, what he is going to write? However good your intentions, at times you can’t “get the hang of it,” can’t say the thing you meant to say. ”

“ In America a holiday is a day when people dress in their best, and either walk the streets of a great city, or else take drives, or go to museums or theatres, or do something which smacks of civilization. ”

“ The great abuse of holidays is when they are too few. There are offices, we understand, in the city, in which, with the exception of Sundays, people have but one holiday or so throughout the year, which appears to us a very melancholy hilarity. ”

“ The holiday season is a time of gift giving and merrymaking; a time when millions help churches, synagogues, and organizations like the Salvation Army and Toys for Tots provide for the less fortunate among us, a time when huge turkey dinners are cooked, parents find themselves staying up late wrapping toys, and children's eyes are filled with more and more excitement every day-a time, indeed, when all the world seems taken up with plans and celebrations and family. ”

“ All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world’s wildernesses I first should wander. ”

“ No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment.” ”

“ After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working. ”

“ Take a holiday in bed, if only to discover what an angel your wife is.
There is only one thing to guard against. Never call it a holiday. Continue not to feel sure what is wrong with you, and to talk vaguely of getting up presently. Your wife will suggest calling in the doctor, but pooh-pooh him. Be firm on that point. The chances are that he won't understand your case.
[Pg 37]
LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE.
Up here among the heather (or nearly so) we are, in the opinion of tourists, a mere hamlet, though to ourselves we are at least a village. ”