Matinee

“ But can the glorified little children whose lives seem now to be one vast and happy playtime, can the privileged schoolgirls who are permitted to come to town for a matinée,—which sounds to me as fairy-like as Cinderella’s ball,—ever know the real value of a holiday? As well expect an infant millionaire to know the real value of a quarter. ”

“ Looking out of the window, I discover that the morning is perfect; never did nature wear a fairer robe than she has put on to-day, and I long to be out, assisting at her morning show, brushing the dew from her meadows with hurrying feet, smelling at her freshly opened buds and flowers, taking a long draught of her beautiful, vigorous, healthy life. I have some difficulty in getting my breakfast, to which is added one welcome and one unwelcome addition in the shape of a letter from Jack and another from George. ”

“ THE MORNING COMES BEFORE THE SUN. Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose
From out night's gray and cloudy sheath;
Softly and still it grows and grows,
Petal by petal, leaf by leaf;
Each sleep-imprisoned creature breaks
Its dreamy fetters, one by one,
And love awakes, and labor wakes,—
The morning comes before the sun.
What is this message from the light
So fairer far than light can be?
Youth stands a-tiptoe, eager, bright,
In haste the risen sun to see ”

“ It is only eight o'clock, and we had breakfast at seven, and it is rather early to be setting out; but when everybody is so anxious to start, so ready to go, why should there be any unnecessary tarrying? Yoicks! away we go, along the dewy, bloomy lanes, between the fresh, green hedgerows, with the early breath of the morning blowing coolly in on our happy, eager faces; past the staring, silent cows, and the dull labourers who, poor souls, are going about their work just as on any other day, who are not tasting our first delicious, strange draught of "going away!" ”

“ First come the maidens of the morning in the delicate colors of early daylight, their faces full of anticipation. Then follow the glowing noontide hours in warm colors, when life and strength are in their fullness, and then the waning hours of afternoon in pale tints and with pensive faces. All are linked hand in hand, keeping perfect step, none missing and none delaying. ”

“ The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. ”

“ February 5, 1853 (seven o’clock in the morning) .—I am always astonished at the difference between one’s inward mood of the evening and that of the morning. The passions which are dominant in the evening, in the morning leave the field free for the contemplative part of the soul. Our whole being, irritated and overstrung by the nervous excitement of the day, arrives in the evening at the culminating point of its human vitality; the same being, tranquilized by the calm of sleep, is in the morning nearer heaven. ”

“ In the morning, when the sun is golden, the clang of the day-bell brings the hurry and laughter of three hundred young hearts from hall and street, and from the busy city below,—children all dark and heavy-haired,—to join their clear young voices in the music of the morning sacrifice. ”

“ One such morning, when every blessed bird or beast appears like a bit of happiness astray, should be enough to open one’s eyes to the meaning of nature; but yesterday was just like this in the woods, and in the back of my head is a memory of other mornings in that far, misty time when all days came as holidays, when one leaped out of bed with the wordless thought that life was too precious to waste any of its sunny hours in sleeping. ”

“ The morning hour of the angels is their state of sweetest peace, innocence, trust and joy.
Every morning in the spiritual world is a new birth and resurrection; a passing away of old forms of thought and feeling and a flowering forth of a higher and better state. Every morning is a further revelation of the Lord, and a fresh coronation of love, fragrant with dews and flowers, as the guiding divinity of the soul. ”

“ MORNING SONG. Morning comes to little eyes, Wakens birds and butterflies, Bids the flower uplift his head, Calls the whole round world from bed. Up jump Geoffrey! Up jump Owen!! Then up jump Phyllis!!! And father's going! EVENING SONG. The sun is weary, for he ran So far and fast to-day; The birds are weary, for who sang So many songs as they? The bees and butterflies at last Are tired out; for just think, too, How many gardens through the day Their little wings have fluttered through. And so, as all tired people do, They've gone to lay their sleepy heads Deep, deep in warm and happy beds. ”

“ Two o'clock, the morning of October 12th, 1915.
TO her accustomed eyes
The midnight-morning brought not such a dread
As thrills the chance-awakened head that lies
In trivial sleep on the habitual bed. ”

“ Morning is not romantic. Romance is the twilight spell; but morn is bright and joyous, prompt with action, and full of sanguine hope. Life has few difficulties in the morning, at least, none which we cannot conquer; and a private secretary to a minister, young and prosperous, at his first meal, surrounded by dry toast, all the newspapers, and piles of correspondence, asking and promising everything, feels with pride and delight the sense of powerful and responsible existence. ”

“ As they say in education, nothing like an early commencement—our first impressions are always most vivid, and the simplicity of the morning gives an idea of nature piquant from probable contrast. Perhaps one's rule of three for action might run thus: be naïve at breakfast, brilliant at dinner, but romantic at supper. The visions prepared for midnight should always be a little exalted: but if only one meal be at your choice, prefer the breakfast. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coúte, is as true of sentiments as saints. ”

“ It was a bright and beautiful morning—somehow it is always a bright and beautiful morning when boys leave their homes to commence the journey of life; it is typical of the season of youth and hope, and it is meet that the sky should be clear, and the sun shine brightly, when the little pilgrim sets out upon his tour. ”

“ The Wind is hiding in the trees,
A sighing, soothing, laughing tease,
Until the rose says "Kiss me, please,"
'Tis morning, 'tis morning.
With staff in hand and careless-free,
The wanderer fares right jauntily,
For towns and houses are, thinks he,
For scorning, for scorning. ”

“ The cold airs of the morning send a vigorous life through the limbs, which the toils of yesterday exhausted; and a post-prandial siesta followed by a light repast “of meats and drinks, nature’s refreshment sweet,” prepares the mind for an evening of quiet thought, or rational enjoyment. ”

“ To-morrow morning they must be again on the road, to reach head-quarters in time for parade; but to-morrow morning is a long way off from gentlemen who live every hour of their lives; so away they go, each on his own devices, but one and all resolved to make the most of the present, and glitter, whilst they may, in the sunshine of their too brief noon. ”

“ Breakfast—a leisurely, jolly affair as I would have it, with every member of the household present on the stroke of the gong—is unequalled as a unifying force. The plea that everybody is in a hurry in the morning is no excuse; if there is any hour when haste is unprofitable it is that first morning hour. ”

“ In one thing we agree with him, that there is no sort of harm in a heavy supper. There, however, we are guilty of some confusion of ideas; for what to us, who rise in the morning, seems a supper, is to him who gets up at evening twilight, a breakfast. ”

“ The noonday travelling-mood, like noonday light, is commonplace and uniform; while the early morning mood, like the light when it first comes, is full of colour and surprise. Such, at any rate, has been my experience, and I never made an out-of-the-way early start without coming upon one or more companions who gave me a new glimpse into some corner of life, and whose encounter I should have been the poorer for having missed. ”

“ When the morning comes—a morning gloomy with rain and wind—he walks into the dark, trackless woods, falls asleep by some murmuring water, and with melancholy enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostication, or some music played by aërial performers. ”

“ The morning star will never wink, The morning star will never wink, Till there cometh stint of liquor. For 'tis tipple, tipple, tipple all around the world, my lads, And the sun in drink is nightly lapped and curled, my lads, And to-night let us drink, and to-morrow we'll to sea; For 'tis tipple, tipple, tipple—yes, 'tis tipple, tipple, tipple— Makes the world and us to jee. ”

“ The afternoon shall mean an isolation with the books—perhaps on the sand with the sun tanning our backs. Both healthfully and mentally an efflux of soul. At about five in the afternoon comes the humming calm—the poise of mind and soul and body. Another meal of the simple foods and once more, production, as the sun goes into the sea—giving one's soul the might and expanse that the planets use in weaving their ways. ”

“ UP IN THE MORNING EARLY.
Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.
Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly ”

“ You lie in bed till ten or eleven in the morning, yet you are weary, exhausted, when you get up. I see you in my mind's eye as you go out into the street; the morning has dawned too early on your blinking eyes. ”

“ For when the morning sun shines on field and meadow, and on every creature which in the night found rest and strength to rise up jubilating with the sun—in this there is only a pleasing, mutual understanding; but a nightly company, viewed by the morning light and in smiling surroundings, makes a downright uncanny impression. ”

“ I have always confessed that I like to sleep in the morning as well as I like to stay up at night, and to have my sleep disturbed makes me as ill-natured as a bad dinner makes a man. The fond father of these children had a habit of coming over early in the morning to see his cherubs, before he went to his bath. ”

“ More prayers are said, and with more devotion, at night than in the morning. We creep and crawl and squirm to heaven when the uncertainty of the night has to be faced; but we can get along well enough, thank you, when we spring out of bed with the courage of morning. ”

“ The morning beams oppress you with a feeling of sickness; their steady glow, reflected by the glaring waters, blinds your eyes, blisters your skin, and parches your mouth: you now become a monomaniac; you do nothing but count the slow hours that must "minute by" before you can be relieved. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who can begin conventional amiability the first thing in the morning? It is the hour of savage instincts and natural tendencies; it is the triumph of the Disagreeable and the Cross. I am convinced that the Muses and the Graces never thought of having breakfast anywhere but in bed. ”

“ May oft be moistened by thy tears.
The midnight tasks that hold from sleep
Teach us to garner as we reap.
The ticking clock on yonder wall,
The drooping lids as swift hours call!
The morning brings the rising sun ”

“ The morning light is in their hair,
Golden as ever sunbeams were;
The morning light is in their eyes,
Azure as ever were the skies:
And every thing in each sweet face
Is touched with gladness and with grace ”

“ I went to bed at ten o'clock, for the purpose of securing a good night's rest, and of being fresh and vigorous in the morning, but eleven, twelve, and one found me wide awake; nor could I have lain in a state of unconsciousness much above an hour when the sound of the bugle restored me to my senses. ”

“ The general aspect of midnight is calm and solemn; the lulled spirits unconsciously are subdued by the deep repose. Not so this night. The keen air from the water made exercise necessary to circulate the blood; and somewhat of cheerful exertion is connected with a fresh gale and a quick walk. ”

“ It is the top of the morning, which, in every calling of life, contains an hour worth two or three hours of the afternoon. By the time that the clattering tea tackle is out of the way, the morning is spoiled ”

“ You will soon learn, if you have not learned already, to give up the heavy American breakfast, and so will be hungry by noon. That gives you the fresh of the morning free, with little digestive work to dull your activity, and the lovely evenings from five to eight or nine. If you wish to go out romancing by moonlight, the supper is just enough to content, without clogging. ”

“ These days that one begins at six o'clock seem always of unnatural length—what should be luncheon time in the ordinary way is only breakfast time on these occasions; and, when all the hours are unoccupied, how delightedly one would welcome bedtime in the afternoon! ”

“ The soft air of the morning has a voice only to be heard when crowds are far away. The leaves of the green trees have tongues, drowned in the idle gabble of a foolish multitude, but heard in the calm quiet of the early morning. ”