Peonies

“ I must expand a little the type of my primitive peasant before defining these. You observe, I have not named among the polite persons giving theoretical service in exchange for vegetable diet, the large, and [8] lately become exceedingly polite, class, of artists. For a true artist is only a beautiful development of tailor or carpenter. As the peasant provides the dinner, so the artist provides the clothes and house: in the tailoring and tapestry producing function, the best of artists ought to be the peasant’s wife herself, when properly emulative of Queens Penelope, Bertha, and Maude ”

“ We passed peasant women,—hardy, tall, sometimes handsome, with scarlet undergowns held up; occasionally one riding on a pack-horse, or in her place a child perched on the hump of the wooden saddle. Or, again, peasants bearing loads on their backs, or carriers with weighty merchandise swung between them on poles; priests, young and old, stepping gravely in their white, or yellow, or black dresses—some with umbrellas open, others, whose quicker step meant that they had not far to go (perhaps only to some wayside temple) , protecting their shaven heads with outspread fan. ”

“ Prince and peasant hold a jubilee together—the children burn nuts to find out whether their future partners will be ill-natured or good-natured, count apple seeds, and try all manner of charms; the servants have their feasts in the halls; the nobility open their grandest drawing rooms; and every sort of fun is sanctioned on "Hallow Eve;" but good bye to that pleasant "Hallow Eve," I never expect to witness anything like it again.
My young lady was a fine horsewoman, and sometimes joined in the deer hunts. ”

“ The peasant princess surprised with her pitcher upon her shoulder, the heedless hospitality of the honest great-hearted peasant, the anxiety of the housewife about supplying the sudden and noble visitors, the hurried borrowing of provisions from a good neighbour—here are scenes which may shock a Voltaire or a Schlegel, but which impress an English critic with a sense of the power and the love of human nature shown in our best tragedies. ”

“ And Monsieur grew tired, and my lord Duke asked Sir Julian if the children did not tire him also, and he answered: 'Duke, there is a peculiarly wholesome knowledge that we cannot obtain save through a child's mind; and while in the companionship of children, we are surrounded by a field of flowers, whose glory fructifies the good germ within us, and Wisdom—that tallest flower, that knows no harvest—springs up at prime, blossoms forth at compline and grows a fragrant staff, upon which man leans in the night of life.' Then they walked away, and I heard no more. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The serpent said: ‘Do not fear him, give me thy word that what the king gives, thou wilt share with me, and I will teach thee.’ The peasant [40] rejoiced, gave his word, and swore, saying: ‘I will bring thee all that the king presents to me if thou wilt aid me in this matter.’ The serpent said: ‘I shall divide it in halves, half will be thine; when thou seest the king, say: “The fox meant this, that in the kingdom there is cunning, hypocrisy, and treachery.”’
The peasant went, he approached the king, and told even what the serpent had taught. ”

“ His servant, however, found an opportunity of blowing with the bellows behind his neck, and again the prince fell asleep. A moment after came the nine peahens, and the eight alighted on the lake and the ninth by him, on his horse, and sought to awaken [14] him, caressing him. “Arise, my darling! Arise, my heart! Arise, my soul!” But it was of no use, he slept on as if dead. Then the peahen said to the servant, “When your master awakens, tell him he ought to strike off the head of the nail from the lower part, and then he will find me.” ”

“ But no one who has seen much of actual ploughmen thinks them jocund; no one who is well acquainted with the English peasantry can pronounce them merry. The slow gaze, in which no sense of beauty beams, no humor twinkles, the slow utterance, and the heavy, slouching walk, remind one rather of that melancholy animal the camel than of the sturdy countryman, with striped stockings, red waistcoat, and hat aside, who represents the traditional English peasant. ”

“ But you have to look back to see how sweet the purity and simplicity of the peasant's life. The peasants themselves do not know. To-day holy hot sunlight and lilac bloom—could there be a more wonderful day than that? ”

“ The changing costume of the peasant—the whimsical, traditionary head-dress of the women, which, whimsical as it is, retains its geographical boundaries with a constancy rarely found in any flora of the botanist—the oddly constructed vehicles, carts fashioned upon all conceivable plans, and drawn by horses, or mules, or oxen harnessed and decorated in what seems quite a masquerading attire—these, and a thousand other things, in their nature the most common and familiar, claim for once the power to surprise us. ”

“ In succeeding letters the peasants are represented making love, fighting, playing games and practical jokes, drinking, and other scenes in which the humour is too gross for modern tastes, and concluding with the return from the fair, the peasant riding home with his wife behind him, and the visit of the doctor on the following morning, made necessary by over-indulgence in merry-making. ”

“ Now, luxury was for the time absent on leave, and we thought much of the peasant, and little of the prince. For the peasant is a fact, and the prince but a symbol, and a symbol of that which to-day can be represented without him ”

“ If thou art taken to the King, he will straightway be enamoured of thy beauteous face and will wish to have thee near him, and because he is of so great a title, he will expect to mould thee to his desires, whether 'tis thy will or not. He may perhaps overawe thee, and thou wilt feel flattered by his approaches, which will seem sincere to thy untutored perceptions. 'Twill be thy first meeting with a King. There is one thing most sure, thou wilt not think him handsome; he has not the rich colouring that so marks Lord Cedric's face, nor yet the clearness of countenance. ”

“ His lyric art loved the study of the peasants’ life, their customs and songs. He painted the strong, handsome type of the peasant in his work, in his joys and his sorrows; his art sang, rejoiced and wept. His frequent children’s types are an expression of care free childhood in its sunny joyousness. ”

“ Thus, the peony, which, from its mythical divine origin, was an important flower in the primitive pharmacopoeia, has even in modern times retained its reputation; and to this day Sussex mothers put necklaces of beads turned from the peony root around their children's necks, to prevent convulsions and to assist them in their teething. When worn on the person, it was long considered, too, a most effectual remedy for insanity, and Culpepper speaks of its virtues in the cure of the falling sickness. ”

“ As we look at them the tears spring to our eyes, and we know not whence they come. The solitary shepherd with his flock, the peasant returning from the wood with his bundle of faggots, whispering woods and open dales, sweet little peasant children with their pitchers in springtime,—that is what he loved to paint and what he painted, with as much sought-out refinement as with tender truth to nature. ”

“ From this peasant life, painting, before his time, had collected merely trivial anecdotes with a conventional optimism. It was through no very adequate conception of man that peasants, in those earlier pictures, had always to be celebrating marriages, golden weddings, and baptisms, dancing rustic dances, making comic proposals, behaving themselves awkwardly with advocates, or scuffling in the tavern for the amusement of those who frequent exhibitions. They had really won their right to existence by their labour. ”

“ The young prince meanwhile grew in comeliness and manliness, which were only surpassed by his excellence and wisdom; thus all the blessings of the two good fairies were fulfilled, and no one at Court had the least suspicion that the prince had ass's ears.
When his beard grew, and it became necessary that he should be shaved, the king sent for a barber, and told him to shave the prince, but on no account to reveal to any one that his son had ass's ears, for if he did he should be punished with death. ”

“ And since you remind me of one, a rooster you shall be," and in five short seconds the little prince was changed into a young gamecock.
"Out into the courtyard!" cried the King; "a castle is no chicken house," and the little prince found himself unceremoniously thrown under the big pine tree.
"Have pity!" cried the little princess. "Is there no pity for a little orphan princess?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then we began going up and up, and we kept meeting peasant girls tripping gaily down in their rope shoes, singing together like happy birds, not even touching with their hands the loaded baskets on their heads. They were so beautiful that they were more like stage peasants than real ones. ”

“ Pioneer life brings to light striking characteristics in a remarkable manner; because, in the absence of conventionalities and in the presence of absolute and imminent necessities, all real qualities come to the surface as they never would have done under different circumstances. In the early life of the Greeks, Homer found his Penelope; in the pioneer days of the Pacific Coast, I discovered mine. ”

“ The prince was courteous to them all, but he did not seem to distinguish anyone above the others.
For the last three days of this carnival anyone was allowed to appear at it, even the palace servants if they chose. They did choose, and so when the first of these three days arrived there was a great stir and bustling and running to and fro in the kitchen. [164] No one had any thought for the old woman who helped the scullery wench, and so no one noticed when she stole away by herself to the miserable loft where she slept. ”

“ Only a total absence of acquaintance and sympathy with our peasantry could give a moment's popularity to such a picture as "Cross Purposes," where we have a peasant girl who looks as if she knew L.E.L.'s poems by heart, and English rustics whose costumes seem to indicate that they are meant for ploughmen with exotic features that remind us of a handsome primo tenore. ”

“ There is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour, and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in pawn, that seems to have awakened in this woman’s mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed, for an instant, her whole demeanour. ”

“ Lately at the castle a jongleur told this anecdote: "A certain peasant showered his wife with blows on principle. 'She must have some occupation,' said he, 'while I work in the field. If she is idle she will think of evil things. If I beat her she will weep the whole day through, and so will pass the time. Then when I return in the evening she will be more tender.'" According to other stories, however, many peasants are clever, aggressive, and insolent—well able to care for themselves. ”

“ Really, if I were a painter, I would paint a picture of this sort: a cultivated man standing before a peasant, doing him homage: heal me, dear master-peasant, I am perishing of disease; and a peasant doing homage in his turn to the cultivated man: teach me, dear master-gentleman, I am perishing from ignorance. ”

“ We see the curé, himself a peasant—avaricious by nature and breeding, yet charitable by grace—as he tramps the windy downs at lambing-time to count his tithe, implacable in the assertion of his rights, were it merely to half a calf’s head or a dozen starveling pears, yet capable of sharing his food and dividing his last faggot with the poorest of his flock. ”

“ They overtook a peasant, and asked him if it were likely they could get food and a hospitable bed there, for love of Christian charity, and if perchance, a moral parlor entertainment might meet with generous countenance—“for,” said they, “this exhibition hath no feature that could offend the most fastidious taste.”
“Marry,” quoth the peasant, “an’ it please your worships, ye had better journey many a good rood hence with your juggling circus than trust your bones in yonder castle.” ”

“ Like the eyes of the men in the big hats—I call them the peons. Their eyes have no middle to them. Those big handsome men, under their big hats, they aren’t really there. They have no centre, no real I. Their middle is a raging black hole, like the middle of a maelstrom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”