Amaryllis at the Fair

Did ever any one have a beauti­ful idea or feeling without be­ing repulsed?—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'



What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making of money; I could show you plenty of men who have worked the whole of their lives as hard as ever could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence as when they began. In fact, that is the rule; the winning of independence is rarely the result of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

Such emanations as there may be from burning logs are odorous of the woodland, of the sunshine, of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives out as it burns the sweet­ness it has imbibed through its leaves from the atmosphere which floats above grass and flowers.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

Les miserables who have to write like myself must put up with anything, and be thankful for permission to exist; but people with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware, or mud, or bricks and mortar,— why on earth these happy and favoured mortals do not live like the gods passes understanding.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

I am not a Roman Catholic; but I must confess that if I could be assured any particular piece of wood had really formed a part of the Cross, I should think it the most valuable thing in the world, to which Koh-i-noors would be mud.
I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above crowns.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

It is possible to think till you cannot act.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by a sort of stand at the back, which holds it steady in one position while the camera takes the picture. In life most people have their heads fixed in the claws of some miserable pettiness, which in­terests them so greatly that they tramp on steadily forward, staring ahead, and there's not the slightest fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they are travelling.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East, and despise the Turks and all their ways, making Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in high places, with the utmost contempt for anything reasonable,—all so incon­gruous and chance-ruled. In truth, all things in our very midst go on in the Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight places, and straight people
in crooked places, just the same as if we had all been dropped promiscuously out of a bag and shook down together on the earth to work out our lives, quite irrespec­tive of our abilities and natures. Such an utter jumble.—' Amaryllis at the Fair.'

In time, long time, people's original feelings get strangely confused and overlaid. The churchwardens of the eighteenth century plastered the fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches—covered them over with yellow­ish mortar. The mould grows up, and hides the capital of the fallen column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the foot of the oak, where it is oldest, the bark becomes dense and thick, impenetrable, and without sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without reaching the sap. A sort of scale or caking in long, long time grows over original feelings. — 'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

It is not the particular cast of features that makes a man great, and gives him a pre-eminence among his fellows. It is the character —the mind.
A great genius commands attention at once by his presence, and so a woman may equally impress by the power of her nature. Her moral strength asserts itself in subtle ways.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

There is nothing so good to the human heart as well agreed conversation, when you know that your companion will answer to your thought as the anvil meets the hammer, ringing sound to merry stroke; better than wine, better than sleep, like love itself—for love is agreement of thought. —'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines above, and the flowers beneath 'a summer's day in lusty May,' then is the time an Interlude in Heaven.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

That is the saddest of thoughts —as we grow older the romance fades, and all things become commonplace. Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow, the other half in wishing for yesterday.
Wild-flowers alone never become com­monplace. The white wood-sorrel at the foot of the oak, the violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on the wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as last, as dear to-day as twenty years since, even dearer, for they grow now, as it were, in the earth we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers, our emotions, our thoughts.-' Amaryllis at the Fair.'

You cannot draw a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest, and done worst of all. How can you draw life itself? What is life? you cannot even define it. The swallow's wing has the motion of life-its tremble—its wonderful delicacy of vibration—the instant change—the slip of the air;—no man will ever be able to draw a flying swallow.—'Amaryllis at the Fair.'

If once the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so exalted, still to Fleet Street the mind will return, because there is that other mind, without whose sympathy even success is nothing—the mind of the world. I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare, Fleet Street, but of all that the printing-press means. — 'Amaryllis at the Fair.'