Our Social Bees: Or, Pictures of Town & Country Life, and Other Papers

Front Cover
R. Hardwicke, 1861 - Great Britain - 532 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 433 - A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky...
Page 370 - THERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine. And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Page 182 - WHEN the Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Labouring Classes was first established on its present footing, I accepted with great pleasure the offer of becoming its President.
Page 406 - HOLLAND. A COUNTRY that draws fifty foot of water, In which men live as in the hold of Nature, And when the sea does in upon them break, And drowns a province, does but spring a leak...
Page 489 - I was not always assured of my identity, or even existence, for I sometimes found it necessary to shout aloud to be sure that I lived, and I was in the habit very often at night of taking down a volume, and looking into it for my name, to be convinced that I had not been dreaming of myself.
Page 6 - that there hath been no certain or constant intercourse between the kingdoms of England and Scotland;" and commands "Thomas Witherings, Esq., his Majesty's postmaster of England for foreign parts, to settle a running post or two, to run night and day between Edinburgh and Scotland and the City of London, to go thither and come back in six days.
Page 477 - But, after a few months, another fit of somnolency invaded her. On rousing from it, she found herself restored to the state she was in before the first paroxysm ; but was wholly ignorant of every event and occurrence that had befallen her afterwards.
Page 489 - I have sometimes half believed, although the suspicion is mortifying, that there is only a step between his state who deeply indulges in imaginative meditation, and insanity...
Page 395 - I allow well ; so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath been in the country before ; whereby he may be able to tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country where they...
Page 509 - It would be more singular still if the silk-hat theory of baldness has any truth in it, as it would then turn out that we were sacrificing our own natural nap in order that the beaver might recover his. Without endorsing the speculative opinion of our hatter, we may, we believe, state it as a well ascertained circumstance that soldiers in helmetted regiments are oftener bald than any other of our heroic defenders.

Bibliographic information