Lane

“ This is the sweetest water-lane in the world, a lane which runs for more than one hundred and fifty miles of pure delight betwixt hedge-rows of oaks and cypresses and palms and magnolias and mosses and vines; a lane clean to travel, for there is never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust and gold dust which the wind blows out of the flags and lilies. ”

“ Presently the road descends, and we continue along a wild old wandering gipsy-haunted lane that looks like an avenue in places where the trees almost meet overhead; the sun-light falls in leafy shadows and works a flickering pattern on every foot of the causeway, and the broad strips of grass on either side encroach upon it as if striving for the mastery. ”

“ A FOOTSTEP IN THE LANE
The moon had paled, and a greyness in the sky as we hurried down the hill betokened the approach of day. At length the city had sunk to rest; the port slumbered, and in the red-light quarter behind the docks the laughter and the guitars were stilled. How through that maze of mean streets and lanes I found the way back to Doña Luisa's cabin, I don't know; but I expect that a kind of instinct for marking a route once traversed, which, with me, is inborn, stood me in good stead. ”

“ No sound disturbed the narrow, winding lane which twisted its way now between neglected and forlorn looking fields, presently through woods of larch and pine, again across some deserted piece of common land. One might have followed the lane for hours without meeting a soul, without hearing a human sound beyond the echoes of one's own footsteps sent back from the depth of a copse. ”

“ The wave on which one is lifted clear of the foam and sound of things will never build itself again. And yet, at the lane's end, as I looked back at the long clear bramble curves, I will confess that there was a joy (though it put forth its hands to an unseen grief) in knowing that down that very lane I could never go again, and was thankful that it did not come rashly and suddenly upon the white highroad, and that there is no such thing known to the spirit as a beginning and an end. ”

“ The English lane was made for the leisurely meandering of cows to and from pasture, for the dreamy snail-pace of time-forgetting lovers, for children gathering primroses or wild strawberries, or for the knap-sacked wayfarer to whom time and space are no objects, whose destination is anywhere and nowhere, whose only clocks are the rising sun and the evening star, and to whom the way means more than the goal. ”

“ A very pleasant way it becomes as soon as it leaves the town—a winding, climbing by-road, bordered with such a tall and sturdy hedge as to give it the air of an English lane—if you can fancy an English lane introducing you to the haunts of a Madame de Warens. ”

“ Leaving the old inn we took a narrow lane opposite to it, for it had a pleasant look; the highway too was pleasant enough, but we thought the lane the more likely to lead to some out-of-the-way spot and have more picturesque possibilities: the highways serve the towns, the byways the villages and the countryside, so always take to a lane when you can if you desire to discover the secreted beauty of the land. Our lane led us through a green and old-world country with no hint of modern ugliness or aught but tranquillity about it, a tranquillity that hardly seemed of our bustling day. ”

“ Lane after lane, alley after alley, fled Philip; dodging, winding, breathless, panting; and lane after lane, and alley after alley, thickened at his heels the crowd that pursued. The idle and the curious, and the officious,—ragged boys, ragged men, from stall and from cellar, from corner and from crossing, joined in that delicious chase, which runs down young Error till it sinks, too often, at the door of the gaol or the foot of the gallows. ”

“ The windings of the lane only permit a view of some hundred yards of its length at one time; but even this short distance offers an impressive sight. It is apparent, in spite of the dust and dirt, that the greater number of these men—some still on their horses, some standing, and some stretched out on the shady side of the road—are seasoned and in the prime of life; no mere boys, but men in the best sense of the word, sturdy and full-set. ”

“ You know I sometimes take a turn in the country lanes outside this dismal place; well, I was walking early this evening up a steep lane with dark hedges and grey-looking ploughed fields on both sides; and a young moon was up and silvering the road. By the light of it I saw a man running across the field towards the road; running with his body bent and at a good mile-race trot. ”

“ A lane often presents the painter with admirable studies for foregrounds, they are, more generally than any other parts of nature, set off with rugged old pollards, stretching their long arms athwart the road, their furrowed trunks and twilled branches being enriched with stains and mosses of all hues, from the light grey and brilliant yellow to the dark green approaching to black. ”

“ It was a genuine lane, all ups and downs, and too narrow for a street, although at last they have leveled it and widened it, and made a commonplace thoroughfare of it. I am glad that my baby life knew it in all its queer, original irregularities, for it seemed to have a character of its own, like many of its inhabitants, all the more charming because it was unlike anything but itself. The hill, too, is lost now, buried under houses.
Our lane came to an end at some bars that let us into another lane,—or rather a footpath or cowpath, bordered with cornfields and orchards. ”

“ Then a crooked lane controls the pace, you cannot go fast on it, so time is compulsorily afforded to see and absorb all that is worth seeing; the lane is for the loiterer, [Pg 51] though few there be who care to loiter nowadays, so the lane is almost forsaken except by country folk and rural lovers. Some one somewhere says, who or where I cannot now remember, nor am I sure if I have the quotation right, but this is the drift of it, "The lane is a work of genius, the highway that of the engineer." The lane is to the highway as old wine is to new; there is a finer flavour about it, a rarer charm ”

“ We turn our horses' heads in the direction of a grassy lane, delightfully shaded by trees. We trot merrily along the lane, and find ourselves on an open common. We gallop across the common, and follow the windings of a second lane. We cross a brook, we pass through a village, we emerge into pastoral solitude among the hills. The horses toss their heads, and neigh to each other, and enjoy it as much as we do. ”

“ The lane that I went was so long, long, long,
And the song that I sung was so long, long, long,
And so I went singing along."
It 's all along, and along,
For the earth is bonny, and glad, and wide,
And we 're free to wander, and free to bide,
And we travel with a song.
It's long, it's wearily long!
For the path is narrowed to only a lane ”

“ Let such a traveler but follow a lane that leads up through willow and elderberry, sassafras, laurel, wild cherry, and twining clematis—a lane alined with slender wood-maples, hickory, and mountain-ash, and flanked, where it gains the open, with scattered juniper and oak, and he will come out at last on the scenes of a country’s childhood. ”

“ I have ridden hundreds of miles on these various Indian paths, and I ever love to trace the roadway where it is now the broad, travelled road, and where it turns aside in an overgrown and narrow lane which is to-day almost as neglected and wild as the old path. ”

“ One is, that an old-fashioned coach, perfectly noiseless, drawn by horses through which you can see the moonlight, haunts the highroad at intervals and flies through the gloomy forest road we have christened of late years Lost Man's Lane. ”

“ Turn down the next lane to the right, and then there are lots of jolly grass fields and a wide common, so that we can gallop as much as we like, and get there before them—won’t they be surprised to see us just? ”

“ I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane.
Lane. It never is, sir.
Algernon. Lane, you’re a perfect pessimist.
Lane. I do my best to give satisfaction, sir. ”

“ A little farther beyond, and the lane we have been traversing descends abruptly into its bed, which forms a continuance of the thoroughfare for a short distance. Our path diverges through the gate on the right, and into the green fields. ”

“ The lane is a farmer's track leading from the road in the valley to the road on the spur. It runs almost north and south, like the lines of trenches, and is about five hundred yards long. From its start in the valley-road to a point about two hundred yards up the spur it is sunken below the level of the field on each side of it. At first the sinking is slight, but it swiftly deepens as it goes up hill. ”

“ Then I saw a man come up in a deuce of a hurry and turn into the lane. I saw him stop and listen for a moment and then bustle off down the hill. Close on this fellow’s heels comes another man, also in a devil of a hurry. He turns into the lane, too, and suddenly he pulls up and creeps forward on tip-toe like a cat on hot bricks. He stops and listens, too; and then off he goes down the lane like a lamplighter. Then out you come from behind the gate-post, over the railings you climb, and then you creep up to the corner and listen, and then off you go down the hill like another lamplighter. ”

“ Whatever lane people walk in they must certaintly wear out shoe-leather; and in whatever lane they wear out shoe-leather, that lane, in propriety of speech, deserves and may challenge the name of Shoe-lane; consequently then, every lane, not only in London, but in all his majesty’s dominions, where the subjects of England walk, and wear out shoe-leather, may properly be call’d Shoe-lane. Judge then whether ever I shall be able to find out the true place where this widow lives by the equivocal description you have given of it. ”

“ Through lane it lay - thro' bramble -
Through clearing, and thro' wood -
Banditti often passed us
Opon the lonely road.
The wolf came peering curious -
The Owl looked puzzled down -
The Serpent's satin figure
Glid stealthily along. ”

“ The dirty lane, with its shabby houses, and grass-grown spaces, and filthy children, has little to remind one of the appearance of the hill as seen by Virgil and Propertius, who speak of the change in their time from an earlier aspect. ”

“ The streets, or rather lanes, are close and confined. Indeed, there is but one principal street, which is transversed by a multitude of lanes, which on one side lead down to the sea, and on the other scramble up a steep hill. ”

“ A footpath has its own character, while that of the high-road is imposed upon it by those who dwell beside it or pass over it; indeed, roads become picturesque only when they are called lanes and make believe that they are but paths. ”

“ He overtakes her just as she reaches the point where the lane debouches into the highroad. She stands, looking rather disconsolately, first up the hill, then down it, evidently uncertain which direction to choose. ”

“ But in this respect lanes are happier than men and women, in that they are able to pursue both courses, and so learn for themselves which is the wiser one, as is the case with this particular lane. One course leads headlong down another steep hill—so steep that unwary travellers usually descend from their carriages [Pg 71] to walk up or down it, and thus are enabled to ensure relief to their horses and a chill to themselves at the same time; for it is hot work walking up or down that sunny precipice, and the cold winds of Mershire await one with equal gusto at the top and at the bottom. ”

“ One of the charms of old England is to be found in her numerous foot-paths and green lanes, which are recognized by law, for many of them are older than the highways. When a walker tires of the public road or is in a hurry, if he knows the country, he can turn into some foot-path and reach the place of his destination by short cuts through green lanes, across pleasant meadows, and along shady hedgerows. ”

“ I had nearly reached the end of the lane, where I should again emerge into the White man’s world, and where I was now walking the lane spread into a broader space with ells and angles and rotting steps, and habitations mostly too ruinous to be inhabited. ”

“ Just here there is a little rock-path to the south, going down to the water between rocks mixed with shrub-like little trees, three yards long: a path, or a lane, one might call it, for at the lower end the rocks and trees reach well over a tall man's head. ”

“ The principal part of the road lay through retired narrow lanes, beautifully overarched with groves of nut and other trees, which screened the traveller from the rays of the sun, and afforded many interesting objects for admiration, in the flowers, shrubs, and young trees, which grew upon the high banks on each side of the road. ”

“ He may change his mind at every finger-post, and, where ways meet, follow vague preferences freely and go the low road or the high, choose the shadow or the sun-shine, suffer himself to be tempted by the lane that turns immediately into the woods, or the broad road that lies open before him into the distance, and shows him the far-off spires of some city, or a range of mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, along a low horizon. ”

“ Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?
Lane. I didn’t think it polite to listen, sir. ”

“ Its lanes are so compressed and its houses, by comparison, so tall that it gives the idea of having been squeezed and one may imagine that with a little more force the houses on the two sides of a street would touch. ”

“ The longer I live here, the better satisfied I am in having pitched my earthly camp-fire, gypsylike, on the edge of a town, keeping it on one side, and the green fields, lanes, and woods on the other. Each, in turn, is to me as a magnet to the needle. At times the needle of my nature points towards the country. On that side everything is poetry. I wander over field and forest, and through me runs a glad current of feeling that is like a clear brook across the meadows of May. At others the needle veers round, and I go to town—to the massed haunts of the highest animal and cannibal. ”