"Midsummer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it. And it ought not to be called a forest, because it seems to have everything but trees. Rocks and rivers and glaciers—more in one county than in all Switzerland, they claim—and granite peaks and hair-raising precipices and lakes filled with ice in midsummer. But not many trees, until, at Cascade Pass, one reaches the boundaries of the Washington National Forest and begins to descend ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... midsummer. The green, wooded hills that form the southern boundary of the valley seemed to be painted on shimmering gauze. The grainfields on the lowlands across the river were shining gold. But the slate-colored dust from ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... worthies. The lilt and sympathy of "The Robin Sings in the Apple-tree," and its unobtrusive new harmonies and novel effects, in strange accord with truth of expression, mark all the other songs, particularly the "Midsummer Lullaby," with its accompaniment as delicately tinted as summer clouds. Especially noble is "The Sea," which has all the boom and roll of the ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... Come, now, cheer up: I am going to be a pleasanter fellow than I have been of late. Dry your eyes, dear. Your father will be laughing at you. Come, let us go and take a stroll in the moonlight: it is quite wicked not to indulge in a little romance on a sweet midsummer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... (1) that John is represented as saying that he baptised with water but that Jesus would baptise with fire (where the rains of winter and the heat of summer may be referred to); and (2) that the Christian Church in framing its calendar fixed upon what we call Midsummer day as the birthday of John the Baptist, and upon the clay which bears the same relation to the other solstice as the birthday of Christ, as if wishing to illustrate that other remarkable pronouncement of John, ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons
... It's a'most as bad." Beyond this the miller would not go; but, when they separated for the night, the mother took herself for awhile into the daughter's chamber in order that they might weep and rejoice together. It was now all but midsummer, and the evenings were long and sultry. The window of Fanny's bedroom looked out on to the garden of the mill, and was but a foot or two above the ground. This ground had once been pleasant to them all, and profitable withal. Of late, since the miller had become old, and Sam had grown to be ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Helen, with a sigh of pleasure, as she looked from the balcony which overhangs the Rhine at the hotel of the "Three Kings" at Coblentz. Ehrenbreitstein towered opposite, the broad river glittered below, and a midsummer moon lent ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... garden. Here, when the family is somewhat small and select, will be presented the marvels of Old Dominion cooking—the marrowy flannel-cake, the cellular waffle, the chicken melting in a beatitude of cream gravy: when the house is pressed with its hundreds of midsummer guests these choice individualities of kitchen chemistry are not attainable; but even then the bread, the roast, the coffee—a great chef is known by the quality of his simples—are of the true Fifth Avenue style of excellence. Captain Potts ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... are ten years old—quite a mature age in my young days! I cannot discuss the whole question here, and must content myself with saying that during my three years at the Princess's I was a very strong, happy, and healthy child. I was never out of the bill except during the run of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," when, through an unfortunate accident, I broke my toe. I was playing Puck, my second part on any stage, and had come up through a trap at the end of the last act to give the final speech. My sister Kate was playing Titania that night as understudy to Carlotta ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... of March, April, and May, these whales appear in great numbers in the open ports of Santa Barbara, San Pedro, &c., and hover off the coast, while a few find their way into the close harbors of San Diego and Monterey. They are all off again before midsummer, and make their appearance on the "off-shore ground.'' We saw some fine "schools'' of sperm whales, which are easily distinguished by their spout, blowing away, a few miles to windward, on our passage ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the horizon when the sky was red-rimmed with (p. 302) the lingering sunset of midsummer and seen the artillery rip the heavens with spears of flame, seen the star-shells burst into fire and drop showers of slittering sparks to earth, seen the pale mists of evening rise over black, mysterious villages, woods, houses, gun-emplacements, and ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... region is of course uncultivable mountain, range succeeding range, in six or eight parallel lines, as the traveller advances to the north-east; and most of the ranges exhibiting vast tracts of bare and often precipitous rock, in the clefts of which snow rests till midsummer. Still the lower flanks of the mountains are in general cultivable, while the valleys teem with orchards and gardens, and the plains furnish excellent pasture. The region closely resembles Zagros, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... scholastic establishment are—that one evening, for a task, I learned perfectly by heart the two first chapters of the Gospel according to Saint John; that there was an unbaked gooseberry pie put prominently on the shelf in the schoolroom, a fortnight before the vacation at Midsummer, to be partaken of on the happy day of breaking-up, each boy paying fourpence for his share of the mighty feast. There were between forty and fifty of us. I had almost forgotten to mention that I was to be duly punished whenever I deserved it, but the master was, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the unreality of pain, but the logic of life has spoiled their plausible philosophizing. A man may carry many hallucinations with him to the grave, but a belief in the unreality of pain is hardly likely to be one of them. The laughing philosopher is quite invincible on his midsummer's day, but ere long fatality makes him sad. There is no screen to shut off permanently the spectacle of suffering. When Marie Antoinette passed to her bridal in Paris, the halt, the lame, and the blind were sedulously kept out of her way, lest their ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... say, you never got up at three o'clock on a midsummer morning. Some people get up then because they want to catch salmon; and some because they want to climb Alps; and a great many more because they must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that three o'clock on ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... was useless to make any further objections, so, reluctantly handing the baby over to the carpenter, he prepared to make himself as comfortable as circumstances permitted during Smith's absence. It was a beautiful warm midsummer evening, but Pierre began to feel chilly and tired of waiting long before Smith came back, though he managed to get several naps, curled up in the bottom of the boat. At last, about eleven o'clock, just as Pierre was getting very nervous, and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... we've work before us!" said Picton, as he rode up to the head of his brigade. The air of depression which usually sat upon his careworn features now changed for a light and laughing look, while his voice was softened and subdued into a low and pleasing tone. Although it was midsummer, the roads were heavy and deep with mud. For some weeks previously the weather had been rainy; and this, added to the haste and discomfort of the night march, considerably increased the fatigue of the troops. Notwithstanding ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... That cursed Abdul Hamid had been rebuked by the powers of Europe for butchering Bulgars, so he turned on us Armenians in order to prove to himself that he could do as he pleased in his own house. I tell you, murder and rape in those days were as common as flies at midsummer! I escaped, and worked my passage in the stoke-hole of a little merchant steamer —they were little ships in those days. And when I reached America without money or friends they let me land because I had been told by the other sailors to say I was fleeing from religious persecution. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... and as good as blind, but halting to bait, Lombardy plains burst on me. Oh, Margaret! a land flowing with milk and honey; all sloping plains, goodly rivers, jocund meadows, delectable orchards, and blooming gardens; and though winter, looks warmer than poor beloved Holland at midsummer, and makes the wanderer's face to shine, and his heart to leap for joy to see earth so kind and smiling. Here be vines, cedars, olives, and cattle plenty, but three goats to a sheep. The draught oxen wear white linen on their necks, and standing by dark green olive-trees ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... had been the chief of Mr. Troy Wilkins's two stenographers for seven months now—midsummer of 1907, when she was twenty-six. She had climbed to thirteen dollars a week. The few hundred dollars which she had received from Captain Golden's insurance were gone, and her mother and she had to make a science of saving—economize on milk, on bread, ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Alexander was at a loss. It was now past midsummer, and in autumn the Northern Sea was wont to be wild and stormy, and on the skilful steering of the Royal bark many precious ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... Pythagorean lore concerning the fate of the soul after death,[136] above cited from Montaigne. We might again, on Dr. Tschischwitz's lines, trace the verses on the "shaping fantasies" of "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," in the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM,[137] to such a passage ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... and it occurs to me as very appropriate in this connection, that the spirit which held the woe of Lear and the tragedy of "Hamlet" would have broken had it not also had the humor of the "Merry Wives of Windsor" and the merriment of the "Midsummer ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... happier, far higher exaltation that we owe those fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild fancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever filled the depth of midsummer dream; those vaulted gates, trellised with close leaves; those window labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry light; those misty masses of multitudinous pinnacle and diademed tower; the only witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... learn, Seeing Nature go astern. Things deteriorate in kind; Lemons run to leaves and rind; Meagre crop of figs and limes; Shorter days and harder times. Flowering April cools and dies In the insufficient skies. Imps, at high midsummer, blot Half the sun's disk with a spot; 'Twill not now avail to tan Orange cheek or skin of man. Roses bleach, the goats are dry, Lisbon quakes, the people cry. Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools, Gaunt as bitterns in the pools, Are no brothers of my blood;— They discredit Adamhood. Eyes of ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... not plain from this that his artist's soul rejected the paltry fact? For "blue" the hours of New Year's Day may be in Italy, but as "long blue hours" they cannot, even there, be figured. I maintain that, whatever it may be called, it is really Midsummer's Day on which Pippa passes from Asolo through Orcana and Possagno, and back to ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... and nights. The streets, meanwhile, were encumbered with heaps of corpses, not a single one of which had been buried since the capture of the town. The remains of nearly all the able bodied male population, dismembered, gnawed by dogs or blackened by fire, polluted the midsummer air meantime, the women had been again driven into the cathedral, where they had housed during the siege, and where they now crouched together in trembling expectation of their fate.' On the 29th August, at two o'clock ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the progress of the Yankees had been permanently stopped, the planters in the locality mentioned endeavored to make as full crops as possible of the great staple of the South. Accordingly, they plowed and planted, and tended the growing cotton until midsummer came. On the fourth of July, Vicksburg surrendered, and opened the river to Port Hudson. General Herron's Division was sent to re-enforce General Banks, who was besieging the latter place. In a few days, General Gardner ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... spots occupied by blue water and greensward over which a greater splendor is cast by the rising sun on a midsummer morning than that portion of the Rhine near Coblentz, and as our little procession emerged from the valley of the Saynbach every member of it was struck with the beauty of the flat country across the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... something of his old proficiency had returned to him. Perhaps public sympathy for his troubles strengthened his hold upon the regard of the community. For it was in the second year of Evelina's marriage, in the splendid midsummer, when all the gifts of nature climax to a gorgeous perfection, and candidates become incumbents, that he unexpectedly attained the great ambition of his life. He was said to have made the race for justice of the peace from sheer force of habit, but by some unexplained freak of popularity the oft-defeated ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the limits within which the human ear is capable of distinguishing sounds, we should sit down in a meadow, some hot midsummer day, and listen to the subdued running murmur of the myriads of insects. Many are very distinct to our ears and we have little trouble in tracing them to their source. Such are crickets and grasshoppers, which fiddle ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... At midsummer, 686, Lucullus set out from Tigranocerta, and, marching doubtless through the pass of Bitlis and farther to the westward along the lake of Van—arrived on the plateau of Musch and at the Euphrates. The march went on—amidst constant and very troublesome skirmishing with the enemy's ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... stay in Hankow just long enough to pack a box for England, and efface a few of the scars of inland travel before confronting whatever society might be found in Peking in midsummer, but rather to my dismay I found the weekly express train left the day after my arrival. It was out of the question to take that, and apparently I would have to wait over a week unless I dared try the ordinary train that ran daily, stopping two nights on the road. But there ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... gravel, peculiarly bad for roses; and at no distant day my garden was a swamp, not unchronicled had we room to dwell on such matters. The bit of lawn looked decent only at midsummer. I first tackled the rose question. The bushes and standards, such as they were, faced south, of course—that is, behind the house. A line of fruit-trees there began to shade them grievously. Experts assured me that if I raised a bank against these, of such a height as I proposed, ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... midsummer's morning, as going to the fair, I met with young Jamie, wh'as taking the air; He ask'd me to stay with him, and indeed he did prevail, Beneath the pretty hawthorn that blooms in the vale— That blooms in the valley, that blooms in the vale, Beneath ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... rain had loosed the fetters of ice, Cartier determined to return to France. Before the ships weighed anchor, however, Donnacona and four of his companions were enticed on board, and with these sorry trophies the French captain turned his prows homeward. At midsummer-time the storm-battered ships glided once more into the rock-bound harbour of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Time of the Year to Marry.— When woman marries she enters upon a new life, and a very trying one. Extreme heat and extreme cold are both very taxing to the human economy. Midsummer and midwinter are therefore both objectionable, but especially ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... childhood, expressed in the regular eyebrows, the vivacious eyes, and the archness of the pretty mouth. Already she displayed those feline graces which nothing, not even captivity nor the sight of her dreadful scaffold, could lessen. The two queens—one at the dawn, the other in the midsummer of life—presented at this moment the utmost contrast. Catherine was an imposing queen, an impenetrable widow, without other passion than that of power. Mary was a light-hearted, careless bride, making playthings of her ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Timely Summer fruit will be ready, some at Midsummer, most at Lammus for present vse; but generally noe keeping fruit before Michal-tide. Hard Winter ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... time being a little past midsummer—the man came back to his cabin, bringing supplies. It was a long journey between the cabin and the settlements, and he had to make it several times during the brief summer, in order to accumulate stores enough to last through ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... instant support from the others. Because Peggy and Keineth had recently attended a matinee performance of "The Midsummer Night's Dream," sitting in a box and wearing the new pink dresses, Billy and Alice conceded that they knew more about plays and must manage this. There were hours and hours then spent behind locked doors and Mrs. Lee could hear shrieks ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... stores of honey gathered before midsummer, you may chance upon a card, or mayhap only a square inch or two of comb, in which the liquid is as transparent as water, of a delicious quality, with a slight flavor of mint. This is the product of the linden or basswood, of all the trees ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet William with his homely cottage smell, And stocks in fragrant blow: Roses that down the alleys ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... institution is not popular with the people generally; and as white labor becomes abundant—and before the war it was becoming abundant—men recognize the fact that the white man's labor is the more profitable. The heat in this State, in midsummer, is very great, especially in the valleys of the rivers. At St. Louis, on the Mississippi, it reaches commonly to ninety degrees, and very frequently goes above that. The nights, moreover, are ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... that you may the less, scruple at this, I shall tell you, that even before and after Midsummer, I have found the Cold producible by our Experiment to be considerable and useful for refrigerating of Drinks, &c. but if the Sal Armoniack be of the fittest sort (for I intimated above, that I suspected, 'tis not equally good) and if the season of the year do make no disadvantagious difference, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... on the Mesa Verde. The plateau is high and the air invigorating, warm by day in midsummer, always cool at night. The atmosphere is marvellously clear, and the sunsets are famous. The winter snows, which reach three or four feet in depth, disappear in April. From May to Thanksgiving the region is in its prime. It is important to realize that ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... over you now old man? Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively? The troops are but drilling, they are yet surrounded with smiles, Around them at hand the well-drest friends and the women, While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down, Green the midsummer verdure and fresh blows the dallying breeze, O'er proud and peaceful cities and arm of ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... "Read your 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' 'Pyramus and Thisbe,' says the story, 'did talk through the chink of a wall,'" ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... rid of them all, as I am rid of them this midsummer's day. I like to steep my soul in a sea of quiet, with nothing floating past me, as I lie moored to my thought, but the perfume of flowers, and soaring birds, ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... attack, forming line on the port tack, heading south-east by east, a point off the wind, under topsails and foresails, a cable's length apart. There is little room to doubt that an adversary who thus holds his ground means to make a stand-up fight, but Parker, although the sun of a midsummer day had scarcely risen, thought advisable to order a general chase. Of course, no ship spared her canvas to this, while the worse sailers had to set their studdingsails to keep up; and the handling ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... Poem on his own Life contains some beautiful lines, (tom. ii. p. 8,) which burst from the heart, and speak the pangs of injured and lost friendship. ——In the Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena addresses the same pathetic complaint to her friend Hermia:—Is all the counsel that we two have shared. The sister's vows, &c. Shakspeare had never read the poems of Gregory Nazianzen; he ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... thousands, yet they could not meddle with me, as touching the execution of their sentence; because of the liberty offered for the suing out of pardons. Whereupon I continued in prison till the next assizes, which are called Midsummer assizes, being ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... first to note signs of distress upon the part of the soldiers, during this march in the midsummer heat. It was she who would suggest a halt in the noontide, in some wooded spot, that "her children" might rest and refresh themselves, and it was she who, never tired herself, would go amongst them, ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... it rushed like a monster o'er cottage and farm, Striking their inmates with sudden alarm; And they ran out like bees in a midsummer swarm. There were dames with their kerchiefs tied over their caps, To see if their poultry were free from mishaps; The turkeys they gobbled, the geese screamed aloud, And the hens crept to roost in a terrified crowd; There was raising of ladders, and ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... butler, taking a wise advantage of his position, glided, without a moment's stoppage, from Mr. Pedgift's character to the business that had brought him into the breakfast-room. The Midsummer Audit was near at hand; and the tenants were accustomed to have a week's notice of the rent-day dinner. With this necessity pressing, and with no orders given as yet, and no steward in office at Thorpe Ambrose, it appeared desirable that some confidential person should bring the matter forward. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... eager to start for home as soon as possible, especially as Aunt Deborah said that she must return in midsummer with her mother for a longer visit. "And thy friend Winifred must come also," she ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... fashioned in new ways—some of these new ways startling, which only made the wearers centers of interest and shocked no one. And Alice remembered that she had heard a girl say, not long before, "Oh, ORGANDIE! Nobody wears organdie for evening gowns except in midsummer." Alice had thought little of this; but as she looked about her and saw no organdie except her own, she found greater difficulty in keeping her smile as arch and spontaneous as she wished it. In fact, it was beginning to make her face ache ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... barren. Swallows were flitting about, and would have meant summer at home, but I fancy they are here all winter. The heat of the sun was intense, and I observed that his altitude seemed as high as I was accustomed to see him in midsummer. ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... my bedchamber became to me a place full of sweet dreams and rest and quiet breathing. Luxurious indifference, a pleasure in hearing the crickets in the grass of the midsummer gardens, and voices talking afar—a satisfaction in seeing the polished walnut, marble and china and plenteous linen towels of my washstand, my altar to Hebe, and in seeing through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... of autumn should fall is sad, but natural, and we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end of all things was drawing nigh. How different ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... knew a red hot chinook that turned the whole darn country into a swamp in April, and never let it freeze up again. I once broke trail at Fort Duggan at the start of May on open water with the skitters running, like midsummer." ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... that tormented me? I remember that one day I saw a man drowning near Pont Royale. It was midsummer and we were rowing on the river; some thirty boats were crowded together under the bridge when, suddenly, one of the occupants of a boat near mine threw up his hands and fell overboard. We immediately began diving for him, but in vain; some hours ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... spirit of the original American. He holds nature to be the measure of consummate beauty, and its destruction as sacrilege. I have seen in our midsummer celebrations cool arbors built of fresh-cut branches for council and dance halls, while those who attended decked themselves with leafy boughs, carrying shields and fans of the same, and even making wreaths for their horses' necks. But, strange to say, they seldom made a free ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... cannot fail to call to mind the admirable travesty of this story by Shakspere, in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... be allowed the like liberty, for describing things which really exist not, if they are founded on popular belief. Of this nature are fairies, pigmies, and the extraordinary effects of magic; for it is still an imitation, though of other men's fancies: and thus are Shakespeare's "Tempest," his "Midsummer Night's Dream," and Ben Jonson's "Masque of Witches" to be defended. For immaterial substances, we are authorised by Scripture in their description: and herein the text accommodates itself to vulgar ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... negotiations with President Harrison in connection with his series of articles, he was called to the White House for a conference. It was midsummer. Mrs. Harrison was away at the seashore, and the President was taking advantage of her absence by ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... twenty-fourth hour. As the sun sets earlier or later, according to the season of the year, the hours vary of course, and the same period of the day that is indicated by the twelfth hour at the time of equinox, is indicated by the eleventh hour in midsummer, and the thirteenth hour in midwinter. This is very annoying to travellers from the north of Europe. "What o'clock is it?" you ask; and are told in reply, "It is the eighteenth hour and three quarters." To find the time of day from ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... with a brain full of strange discords, in a huddled mixture of 'Endymion' and the Book of Revelation, John Wesley's hymns and 'Midsummer Night's Dream'. Few boys of my age, I suppose, carried about with them such a confused throng of immature impressions and contradictory hopes. I was at one moment devoutly pious, at the next haunted by visions ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... letters of the alphabet; and practise many a simple conjuration. I think I recollect long ago, to have seen the maid-servants of a house in Berkshire place an herb, I think a kind of stone-crop, behind the door, calling it Midsummer men, that was to chain the favoured youth as he entered. For me I only wish for the nucca drop of the Arab to fall this night, so I might catch it, and be relieved from my ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... this," said Cole, "we can reach Mr. Duncan's camp, if still where you left him, which I think he is, before midsummer, and then he will be able to reach you at the nearest settlement by the time frost again comes. I am willing to accompany the chief, while Jones can guide you in safety over ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... Midsummer came with its culmination of heat and verdure; and a great epoch it was in the Chellaston year, for it brought the annual influx of fashionable life from Quebec and Montreal. To tell the plain truth, this influx only consisted of one or two families ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... this in midsummer," remarked the keeper, alluding to the clearing-out process, "to give the largest numbers a chance; we must git through with the boys, for after six the men'll be comin' along, tired ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... elusiveness, the enchantment, of Fairyland which, for the mature mind, constitutes its greatest value and charm; it is a man's desire for the realms of Midsummer-night that makes the building of those realms in our childhood so valuable. We are constantly endeavouring to recapture the grace of that intangible kingdom, and the hope of ultimate success retains the elasticity of the mind. Held fast by the stiffened ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... midsummer she chanced to go into the Hotel Astor to buy a magazine. As she had not been there before she made a wrong turning and was forced to cross one of the restaurants. In a far corner, half hidden by a group of palms, she saw Rod at a small table with a ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... sprightly Mrs. Villalonga to conduct her midsummer residence in the Canadian forests upon a scale that may only be compared to a hotel. She usually asked about one hundred friends to visit her for an indefinite time, and of this number perhaps half availed themselves of the privilege, drifting in upon her at any time, remaining only while the spirit ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Vermland and the impecunious gentry who live in its modest manor halls. It is a different folk to whom one is introduced in "Jerusalem," the people of Dalecarlia, the province of Miss Lagerloef's adopted home. They, too, have their dancing festivals at Midsummer Eve, and their dress is the most gorgeous in Sweden, but one thinks of them rather as a serious and solid community given to the plow and conservative habits of thought. They were good Catholics once; now they are stalwart defenders of Lutheranism, a community not easily persuaded but, ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) 'to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable with whipping and confinement in the house of correction'; yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... One midsummer day they had all dined together rather early at Albion Villa, and sat on the lawn, with Mrs. Dodd's boy and Julia's boy and girl playing about these ladies' knees. Now after a little silence, Mrs. Dodd, who had been thinking quietly of many things, spoke to them ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... interesting to reflect upon as that of a man without a penny in his pocket, and a gizzard full of pride, we will leave Mr. Evan Harrington to what fresh adventures may befall him, walking toward the funeral plumes of the firs, under the soft midsummer flush, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... simplicity, and resolved to do nothing against her conscience. Rather than add this sin to the manifold ones committed by her, she preferred, she said, to die the death. So Anna van den Hove was led, one fine midsummer morning, to the hayfield outside of Brussels, between two Jesuits, followed by a number of a peculiar kind of monks called love-brothers. Those holy men goaded her as she went, telling her that she was the devil's carrion, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... part of the mainland, stand the imposing ruins of Kilchurn Castle. Its romantic surroundings have made this castle a favourite subject of the landscape painter. Dalmally, about 2 m. from the loch, is one of the pleasantest villages in the Highlands and has a great vogue in midsummer. The river Awe, issuing from the north-western horn of the loch, affords excellent trout and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... anyway he was on board the Elector as she overhauled the ketch. There was some show of fighting when the vessels first came alongside, of one another, and Maskew drew a pistol and fired it off in young David's face, with only the two gunwales between them. In the afternoon of Midsummer's Day the Elector brought the ketch into Moonfleet, and there was a posse of constables to march the smugglers off to Dorchester Jail. The prisoners trudged up through the village ironed two and two together, while people stood at their doors or ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. John Morley, as a sublime and daring joke by Disraeli which belongs to, and could only happen in an epoch when sober England was ready to allow her Oriental juggler and master to play any kind of Midsummer's Night's Dream pranks even with the sternest realities of human life. Yet sometimes the thought occurs to me that if he were a little more articulate, or, perchance, if the time came when a democracy had to be met, not with bursts of Parliamentary eloquence, but with shot and shell, and ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... midsummer, 1862; things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... at Forlorn River Belding stood alone in his darkened room. It was quiet there and quiet outside; the sickening midsummer heat, like a hot heavy blanket, lay ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... are to be found in the gild accounts showing how the Eve of St. John (Midsummer Eve) and other festivals were celebrated before the suppression of the gilds by Edward VI. In 1541 we have the following (the spelling ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... to four o'clock of a midsummer morning, as Mr. Beamish relates of his last share in the Tale of Chloe, a woman's voice, in piercing notes of anguish, rang out three shrieks consecutively, which were heard by him at the instant of his quitting his front doorstep, in obedience to the summons of young Mr. Camwell, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... obtain the desire of his heart, there were three men who said among themselves, "Let us seek the Master." So they left their home in the early spring when the bluebird first sang, and walked till the fall frosts, and then into winter, and ever on till the next midsummer. And having come to a small path in a great forest, they followed it, till they came out by a very beautiful river; so fair a sight they had never seen, and so went onward till it grew to be a great lake. And so they kept to the path which, when untrodden, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... bright days of June Its leaves grew green and fair, And waved in hot midsummer's noon Its ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... half a dozen horses could not move them. Then, of course, it was impossible for any one to get to work with dry feet; and this was bad for men that were poorly clad and shod, and still worse for women and children. Later came midsummer, with the stifling heat, when the dingy killing beds of Durham's became a very purgatory; one time, in a single day, three men fell dead from sunstroke. All day long the rivers of hot blood poured forth, until, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... his grand, impious way, that he would take it though it were bound by a chain to Heaven. The eyes of all Protestants were turned, says Richelieu, like those of sailors, towards the North. And from the North a deliverer came. On Midsummer day, 1630, a bright day in the annals of Protestantism, of Germany, and, as Protestants and Germans must believe, of human liberty and progress, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, landed at Penemunde, on the Pomeranian coast, and knelt down on the shore to ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... go on the lecture circuit that winter. Redpath had besought him as usual, and even in midsummer had written: ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Midsummer-eve, when the days are longest and the nights shortest, was now come. In the village of Rambin old and young kept the holiday, had all sorts of plays, and told all kinds of stories. John, who knew that this season was the time for all ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... Every midsummer there was a great meeting. Men from all over Iceland came to it and made laws. During the day there were rest times, when no business was going on. Then some skald would take his harp and walk to a large stone or a knoll and stand on it and begin a song ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... was cradling oats in an adjacent field, they made a picture which would always repeat itself whenever he passed that clump of hemlocks; and, as he cut his way down the long slope toward them, under the midsummer sun, he paused a second after each stroke to look with wistful gaze at one now rarely absent from his mental vision. She was too sad and preoccupied to give him a thought, or even to note who the reaper was. From her shady retreat she could see him and ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... added two more ponies to his pack train. These he loaded down with food, staples only, flour, sugar, beans, salt, tea and coffee, and a sack of dried fruit. Also he bestowed upon Nigger a further burden of six dozen steel traps. And in the cool of a midsummer morning, before Hazleton had rubbed the sleep out of its collective eyes and taken up the day's work of discussing its future greatness, Roaring Bill and his wife draped the mosquito nets over their heads and turned their ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of Ben Chambers of Liberty, does not know her age. She was born a slave of Jim Moore, in Oakland, Louisiana. Sally has been married three times and has had seven children, about 54 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Heavy gold earrings hang from her ears and she dresses, even in midsummer, in a long-sleeved calico shirt, heavy socks and shoes, and a sweeping skirt many ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... the afternoon of a midsummer day. Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was on show at 'Tween Bridges. The show was open for any casual sixpence but business in agricultural centres is dead at this hour, and the Professor and his wile slept in ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... we stop? the spider, the cricket, the beetle, the glow-worm, with his feeble lamp, the firefly that flies twinkling through the air all the "midsummer night," and every beast that roams the field, whether wild or tame, all—all have their proper sphere, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Barbadoes, Grenada, St. Vincent's, and Tobago. The government house, at which he resides, is about two miles from town. The road leading to it is a delightful one, lined with cane fields, and pasture grounds, all verdant with the luxuriance of midsummer. It passes by the cathedral, the king's house, the noble residence of the Archdeacon, and many other fine mansions. The government house is situated in a pleasant eminence, and surrounded with a large garden, park, and entrance yard. At ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... was paper—a letter—and she drew it out. A letter—my letter—the long, loving message I had penned to her on the night of the party at Anderson's. Clear and white, as when I put it there that moonlit midsummer night, when I thrust it in too far for my little girl to find ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... to Sarah and said: "This is a growing country. You ought to see the cities springing up there in the Legislature. I was looking with great satisfaction at the crop when Samson came along one day and fell on it. He was like a frost in midsummer." ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... and his father walked to the engine, where they built a fresh fire and made some minor repairs. Even at this early hour the sun shone brightly, its rays mellowing in a sheen of ground-mist that enveloped the prairie, but there is a tang in the Manitoba morning air even in midsummer, and the men walked briskly through the crisp stubble. A little later Beulah came down to the corral with her milk-pails, and the cows, comfortably chewing where they rested on their warm spots of earth, rose ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... clerk towd me—Christmas an Midsummer. Praps we shan't want to use it aw, Hannah; praps we might save soom on it for t' childer. Their keep, iv yo feed em on parritch, is nobbut a fleabite, an they'n got a good stock o' cloos, Sandy's nurse ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... success attended his efforts. Unfortunately, an interruption was caused in 1419, when some seventeen thousand Koreans, Mongolians, and "southern barbarians"—a name given promiscuously to aliens—in 227 ships, bore down on Tsushima one midsummer day and were not driven off until the great families of Kyushu—the Otomo, the Shoni, the Kikuchi, and the Shiba—had joined forces to attack the invaders. The origin of this incident is wrapped in mystery, but probably the prohibition of Japanese pirates was not enforced ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... It was midsummer, the quivering July heat brought out the pungent scent of the freshly clipped box-hedges, and set the mad flood stirring as in the brief action of the play. During the day the white glare drove the guests of the garden ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... ripe midsummer. The fields were all russet and amber with an abundance of corn. The little gardens had seldom yielded so rich a produce. The cattle and the flocks were in excellent health. There had never been ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... my way straight a-head, with, I must confess, an equal tendency to deposit my body on my mother earth and enact the soporiferous. On passing Gerald Cavanagh's kiln, where the Hogans kennel, I entered, and was greeted wid such a chorus of sternutation as you might expect from a pigsty in midsummer, and made me envy the unlicked young savages who indulged in it. At the period spoken of neither you nor they had come in from the kemp. Even this is but a dim recollection, and I remember nothing more until I overheard your voice and theirs in dialogue as you were about to depart. After you went, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... good month in which to seed the lawn. So is May, for that matter, but the sooner the grass gets a start the better, for early starting will put it in better condition to withstand the effects of midsummer heat because it will have more and stronger roots than later-sown grass can have by the time a demand is made ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... horizon. This is a glorious time for both young and old. The people live out-of-doors day and night, going to the parks and gardens, rowing and sailing and swimming, singing and dancing on the village green, celebrating the midsummer festival with feasting and merry-making,—for once more the sun rides high in the heavens, and Baldur, the sun god, has conquered the ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth! —Midsummer Night's Dream. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... black velvet, and we were in midsummer. The material, however, was skillfully draped with a veil, and a profusion of pink flowers gave it a seasonable air. A crimson bow was also tied at her neck; she complacently remarked that "pink and crimson harmonize beautifully;" and others of the party arriving ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... conspiracy, and clearing the King's character; but this he did not do. He swore to the last that Logan and he were both guilty (so Calderwood's authority rightly reported), but that the plot letters were forged by himself, to what end Calderwood did not say. All this appeared midsummer madness. Calderwood, it was argued, must ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... "In the midsummer holidays, 1825, I went to pay a visit to Walter and Sarah, and it was then I first made acquaintance with John and Frank Newman. The latter was spending the Long Vacation with Mr. Mayers to assist ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... it is," remarked Jack, as he looked toward the west where the sun was hovering over the horizon, and ready to take the final plunge, though, of course, it would not be dark for a long time afterwards, thanks to the length of the Northern twilight in midsummer. ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... storm cloud gathering in the distance. The air I was breathing seemed unwarrantably moist; and all about me on the ground little pools remained from the last rainfall. But here there was no soil, not so much even as a grain of sand seemed to exist. The air was warm, as warm as a midsummer's day in my own land, a peculiarly oppressive, ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... The heat of midsummer came, when the blistering sun shone, and a hot blast blew across the sand, and the furious storms made floods in the washes. Day and night Shefford was always in the open, and any one who had ever known him in the past would have failed to recognize ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... night shortly after the Midsummer vacation, the mistress of the school fancied she saw a light under the door of the bedroom occupied by Jessie and three other girls. It was then close on midnight; and, fearing that some case of sudden illness might have happened, she hastened into the room. On opening the door, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... carriage via Ste. Marie, Gripp, Tramesaigues, and the Col de Tourmalet. This route is only open in midsummer. ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... similar to the South Canadian,—a wide sandy stream without banks; and our experience with the latter was fresh in our memories. The stage of water had not been favorable, for this river also had its source in the mountains, and as now midsummer was upon us, the season of heavy rainfall in the mountains, augmented by the melting snows, the prospect of finding a fordable stage of water at Forty Islands was ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... I could see her among the bushes, her lithe form bending in the quest of blossoms. Were it midsummer, I thought, and the garden filled with the whole season's wealth of flowers, it could hold nothing more beautiful than she. Perhaps there was some shadow of my moody fit, the evening after the dinner at the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... and shaking a little pan of corn, that she never noticed the children taking the road toward the White Woods. If she had done so she would have stopped them, for the White Woods was considered a very dangerous place. It was called white because it was always white even in midsummer. The trees and bushes, and all the undergrowth, every flower and blade of grass, were white with snow and frost all the year round, and all the learned men of the country had studied into the reason of it, and had come to the conclusion that the Woods lay in a direct ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... is the imagery of the fairy-songs in the Tempest and the Midsummer Night's Dream; Ariel riding through the twilight on the bat, or sucking in the bells of flowers with the bee; or the little bower-women of Titania, driving the spiders from the couch of the Queen! Dryden truly ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... London boy it is that has restored to the landscape the human colour of life. He is allowed to come out of all his ignominies, and to take the late colour of the midsummer north-west evening, on the borders of the Serpentine. At the stroke of eight he sheds the slough of nameless colours—all allied to the hues of dust, soot, and fog, which are the colours the world has chosen for its boys—and he makes, in his hundreds, a bright and delicate flush between ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... a party of young warriors as our tribe ever sent against any of its ancestral enemies. It was midsummer, and after going two days' journey from home we began to send two scouts ahead daily while the main body kept a half day behind. The scouts set out every evening and traveled all night. One night the great war pipe was held out to me ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman |
