Peasant

“ The poor peasant, with his merely animal wife and animal daughter, toiled in the ditch and in the field, through joyless years, while his king, beneath gilded ceilings, was feasting thousands of nobles, with the luxuries of all climes, from plate of gold. ”

“ The peasant has a dull ear, especially the Berri peasant. The ox-drivers, excited by their unaccustomed interest in their work, did not hear the master's voice, especially as the straining of the ropes, the groaning of the yokes and the carpenter's powerful shouts, rising above everything, drowned those shrill tones. ”

“ On those fields where, with the lark carolling overhead, the peasant drives his ploughshare, other steel than the sickle has glanced, and other shouts have risen than those of happy reapers bearing some blushing, sun-browned maid on their broad shoulders at the Harvest Home. ”

“ The peasant now has his foot on the degrees of the throne, and has only to step up, he and his mates of the mine, the forge, the foundry and the railroad—to step up and lay hand to the orb and sceptre. ”

“ The free and happy peasant, unshackled by the Austrian, bears the double harvest to the garner; and the refined citizens rear without dread the long blighted tree of knowledge in this garden of the world. ”

“ He excels, above all things, in ridding me of the troublesome folk whom I meet upon my rambles. The peasant is naturally curious, as fond of asking questions as a child; but his curiosity is flavoured with a spice of malice and in all his questions there is an undercurrent of chaff. ”

“ The peasant, returning home at this hour along some solitary vale, sees a picture such as no so-called immortal master ever accomplished, such as no king’s house can boast. Yet we feel no wonder; we utter no praise. ”

“ The peasant stood up, went to the great man, and asked what he wanted, and in what way he could be useful to him? The stranger stretched out his hand to the old man, and said, "I want nothing but to enjoy for once a country dish; cook me some potatoes, in the way you always have them, and then I will sit down at your table and eat them with pleasure." The peasant smiled and said, "You are a count or a prince, or perhaps even a duke; noble gentlemen often have such fancies, but you shall have your wish." ”

“ The peasant, who at noon rests from his weary task under a hawthorn hedge, and eats his slice of coarse bread and cheese or rusty bacon, enjoys more real luxury than the prince with pampered, listless appetite under a canopy of state. ”

“ A peasant, all red and perspiring, in nothing but his shirt, with his hair hanging dishevelled about his scared face, galloped straight towards us, and with difficulty stopped his hastily bridled horse. ”

“ The peasant, striding on with a firm tread, seems to show by his large movements his consciousness of the grandeur of his daily toil: he is the heroic embodiment of man, swaying the earth, making it fruitful and subservient to his own purposes. ”

“ The taste of the citizen and of the mere peasant are in all respects the same: the former gilds his balls, paints his stonework and statues white, plants his trees in lines or circles, cuts his yew-trees, four-square or conic, or gives them what he can of the resemblance of birds or bears or men; squirts up his rivulets in jets d'eau; in short, admires no part of nature but her ductility; exhibits everything that is glaring, that implies expense, or that effects a surprise because it is unnatural. The peasant is his admirer. ”

“ A peasant, who writes about peasants and poor people, with a curiosity of style which not only packs his vocabulary with difficult words, old or local, and with unheard of rhythms, chosen to give voice to some never yet articulated emotion, but which drives him into oddities of printing, of punctuation, of the very shape of his accents! ”

“ But where the unfortunate peasant is liable to see his whole crop carried off the land at the pleasure of one of the public officers, or the land itself torn from him, or himself or his son carried off by the conscription, how can we be surprised if he should think it not worth the while to trouble his head or his hands about any thing? Give him security, and he will work; give him property, and he will keep it; and give him the power of enjoying his gains in defiance of the tax-gatherer, and he will exhibit the manliness and perseverance which Providence has given to all. ”

“ And one can well understand how the peasant, winning a scanty subsistence from his poor fields near the forest, and seeing his harvest destroyed in a night by the trampling of a herd of these great brutes against whom his puny weapons were powerless, looked on them as terrible and malignant deities. ”

“ The peasant who, with his family, does all the work on his little inheritance, who neither pays rent to any one above him, nor wages to any one below him, who regulates his production by his consumption, who eats his own corn, drinks his own wine, and is clothed with his own flax and wool, cares little about knowing the price of the market ”

“ And the peasant's wretched condition had lasted for innumerable ages—through which they lived like the beasts with which they shared the tillage of the ground, and then died like those beasts, leaving no trace behind them of a moral and intellectual being. ”

“ Any one who has seen the peasants of France or Italy pray, seen the touching devotion which shines from eyes as earnest and as clear as a dog's, can understand what it meant to such people that there was no longer to be mass or priest. And Sunday too! The peasant is opposed to every change the utility of which is not at once apparent to him. ”

“ Every peasant who possesses one of these estates becomes interested in the maintenance of public order, in the tranquillity of the country, in the suppression of crimes, in the fostering of industry among his own children, and in the promotion of their intelligence. ”

“ There is an admirable page—it brings the idea down to 1851—in which a sordid but astute peasant, twirling his thumbs on his stomach and looking askance, allows this political adviser to urge upon him in a whisper that there is not a minute to lose—to lose for action, of course—if he wishes to keep his wife, his house, his field, his heifer and his calf. ”

“ The first question to a peasant seldom proves more than a flapper to rouse the torpid adjustments of his ears. The invariable answer of a Scottish peasant is, 'What's your wull?'—that of the English, a vacant stare. ”

“ The peasant said, "It is as easy for me to fish on dry land as it is for an ox to have a foal." The messenger went back and took the answer to the King, who ordered the peasant to be brought to him and told him that this was not his own idea, and he wanted to know whose it was? The peasant must confess that at once. The peasant, however, would not do so, and said always, God forbid he should! ”

“ Here, both the labourer and his hire rise in the scale of political consideration; here more hands are called for than can be procured; and the peasant, stimulated to exertions by the reward it reaps for him, enjoys the fruits of his industry, and acquires a relish for the comforts and conveniences of life. ”

“ The young peasant reads it with enthusiastic delight, the old man reflects upon it with silent pride, and to any traveller, searching for antiquarian lore, its venerable pages are most liberally opened, and the simple information they contain generously and gratuitously bestowed. ”

“ Whenever this duty of rich men to the labourers who have tilled their fields is done, the lot of the peasant may again become what it once was, and more deservedly than ever,—the cheerful theme of the poet and the moralist. ”

“ The peasant scrupled to become his servant—sailors hesitated to receive his grain on board, lest perils should find them on the deep—the beggar ceased to solicit alms—the drover and horse-couper, an unscrupling generation, found out a more distant mode of concluding bargains than by shaking his hand—his daughters, handsome and blue-eyed, were neither wooed nor married—no maiden would hold tryste with his sons—though maidens were then as little loth as they are now ”

“ A tall bearded peasant was wheeling in before him a bath-chair in which sat a pitiful helpless being, a boy of about eighteen or twenty years, with a flabby pale face, thick, wet, crimson hanging lips, and the appearance of an idiot. ”

“ Every day, just at the close of evening, the peasant loads the day’s produce upon horses, mules, asses, and even oxen, and conveys them in safety to the proprietor’s house on the estate: returning with his beasts of burthen in time for a good night’s rest, to brace him up against to-morrow’s labours. ”

“ The peasant has them fresh in his memory, so far as they relate to himself. In districts where the peasantry are unadulterated, you can discern the remnants of the feudal relations in innumerable customs and phrases, but you will ask in vain for historical traditions concerning the empire, or even concerning the particular princely house to which the peasant is subject. ”

“ The peasant is the most honourable, religious, and philosophical of mankind. I feel always safe with peasants and like their conversation and ways. They lead the natural life. Before daylight, in midsummer, one heard them directing their oxen at the plough, and after the mid-day siesta they were back at their work till the Ave Maria. It was a large family that inhabited the peasant quarters of our villa and worked the landlord’s vineyards. ”

“ The call that would come to the peasant would be to the Town—to many men and things, for that is just the opposite from his life. In a simple way he would go to the depths of the worst he could find—to the extreme. ”

“ Now, while my lord was always spending, the peasant, on the other hand, was in a peculiarly favourable position for{92} saving. Money scarcely ever left his horny grasp. He paid his rent chiefly in kind, stock, corvées, and quit-rents of one sort or another; but he sold his cattle and crops for coin, at the fair, and put the treasured sols and livres in some safe place behind the rafter or beneath the hearthstone. The corvée was the making of the peasant: pure profit, as he thought, since he only paid in sweat and sinew, instead of lessening his hoard of secret silver. ”

“ The peasant in his wooden shoes is welcomed in the gorgeous churches of Notre Dame and the Madeleine; and even in England, where political and social distinctions are more rigorously enforced than in any other country on earth, the lord and the peasant, the richest and the poorest, are usually occupants of the same church, and partakers of the same communion. ”

“ The peasant answered: "With the first I feed myself; with the second I feed my children, who must care for me when I am old; with the third I feed my father, and so repay him for what he has done for me, and with the fourth I feed my wife, and thus throw it away, because I have no profit from it." "Yes," said the king, "you are right. Promise me, however, that you will not tell any one this until you have seen my face a hundred times." The peasant promised and the king rode home well pleased. ”

“ The peasant rejoices at the absence of tyranny, the citizen at the safety of his home, the merchant at the equity of his decisions and the protection of his property, and the soldier at the regular manner in which his arrears are discharged." "One is struck with the intelligence, knowledge, and curiosity which he displays, as well as at his accomplished manners and address." ”

“ The peasant of the period was of three kinds: the leibeigener or serf, who was little better than a slave, who cultivated his lord's domain, upon whom unlimited burdens might be fixed, and who was in all respects amenable to the will of his lord; the höriger or villein, whose services were limited alike in kind and amount; and the freier or free peasant, who merely paid what was virtually a quit-rent in kind or in money for being allowed to retain his holding or status in the rural community under the protection of the manorial lord. ”

“ In the country the peasant is brisk again, and trudges away from his work cheerily; bands of women affect to make merry with discordant singing as they pass along the fields; the miry cattle are being herded in the villages. ”

“ The peasant, one of the laborers by the year, perseveres, in his humble, soft voice, regularly making his estimate for each article twice the real figure, and having as regularly cut down. He caps the whole by demanding four reals for a sombrero, well knowing—and knowing perfectly well that his master knows also—that the kind of sombrero he would be likely to want costs but one real. ”

“ When a French peasant becomes what in rustic phraseology is called a substantial man, owning or hiring a considerable extent of land, he ceases to be called 'paysan,' and is designated 'cultivateur.' The very word 'peasant,' as I have shown elsewhere, will, in process of time, become a survival, so steady and sure is the social upheaval of rural France. The most eminent Frenchmen of the day, witness the late Paul Bert, are often peasant-born; and hardly a village throughout the country but sends some promising son of the soil to Paris, destined for one of the learned professions. ”

“ The youth remained sitting there till night fell, but the peasant never came back. "The man from Heaven must certainly have been in a great hurry, and would not turn back," thought he, "and the peasant has no doubt given him the horse to take to my father." ”

“ Not only this, but the barrows on the plains are named after the fairies, and the peasant imagines, like the treasure-seekers of the Middle-Ages, that they contain untold wealth, and that the Forest wells are full of gold. [217]
I do not mean, however, to say that these beliefs are openly 178 avowed, or will even be acknowledged by the first labourer who may be seen. The English peasant is at all times excessively chary—no one perhaps more so—of expressing his full mind; and a long time is required before a stranger can, if ever, gain his confidence. ”