Houseboat Days in China |
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Common terms and phrases
Ah Kong ancient bamboo beast better birds boat bunk cabin Celestial CHAPTER Chêkiang Chientang river China Chinese Chinkiang civilisation cloth comes comfort coolies covert creek crew Crown 8vo Cyclops Demy 8vo dinner doubt dreams duck East fields follow foreign Fuyang geese Gehazi Grand Canal Hangchow hills hour houseboat human hunting-grounds instinct Jim's joys labour Lambton land lekin live look lowdah M'Nulty mallard man's Mandarin matter memory mind missionary morning mysterious Nanking native never night P'utzu paddy partridge peace Peking pheasant philosophic pipe railway realised reason sail Saucy Jane Shanghai shooting silent SIR SYDNEY WATERLOW sleep smoke snipe song Soochow soul sport sportsmen swift message talk Taotai things Thurlsby Thurlsby's trip voice walls wild Wilden Wimple wind wonder Wuhu Yangtsze yuloh
Popular passages
Page 94 - UNDER the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned ; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath. Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law, The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.
Page 32 - ... chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle of wine is an answer to most standard works upon the question. When a man's heart warms to his viands, he forgets a great deal of sophistry, and soars into a rosy zone of contemplation. Death may be knocking at the door, like the Commander's statue ; we have something else in hand, thank God, and let him knock.
Page 81 - Chinese village and its inevitable pullulating horde of children without realising the vital problem of the East, a problem so immediate and tremendous that it dominates the mind like an evil dream. . . . The picture is the same from one end of the country to the other; cities and villages innumerable taking their toll of the land; hamlets huddling ever closer in the valleys, where every field already supports more lives than would be possible in any other country except India...
Page 81 - East, a problem so immediate and tremendous that it dominates the mind like an evil dream. . . . The picture is the same from one end of the country to the other ; cities and villages innumerable taking their toll of the land ; hamlets huddling ever closer in the valleys, where every field already supports more lives than would be possible in any other country except India ; a third of humanity struggling hopelessly and unceasingly to procreate and maintain its swarm of predestined hungry ones. And...
Page 33 - ... the dog, or rather the inaccessible genius of his race, troubles scarcely at all about us and that we have merely known how to make use of various aptitudes offered by the abundant chances of life. It matters not: as we know nothing of the substance of things, we must needs cling to appearances; and it is sweet to establish that, at least in appearance, there is on the planet where, like unacknowledged kings, we live in solitary state, a being that loves us.
Page 52 - God created the great whales, and every living creature that moveth, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Page 153 - Night on the hills ! Dark mother-Night, draw near ; Lay hands on us and whisper words of cheer So softly, oh, so softly ! Now may we Be each as one that leaves his midnight task And throws his casement open ; and the air Comes up across the lowlands from the Sea And cools his temples, as a maid might ask With shy caress what speech would never dare ; And he leans back to her demure desires, And as a dream sees far below The city with its lights aglow And blesses in his heart his brothers there; Then...
Page 32 - ... melancholy unbelievers yearning for the tomb as if it were a world too far away. Both sides must feel a little ashamed of their performances now and again when they draw in their chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle of wine is an answer to most standard works upon the question. When a man's heart warms to his viands, he forgets a great deal of sophistry, and soars into a rosy zone of contemplation.
Page 32 - ... life to the dimensions of a mere funeral procession, so short as to be hardly decent ; and melancholy unbelievers yearning for the tomb as if it were a world too far away. Both sides must feel a little ashamed of their performances now and again when they draw in their chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle of wine is an answer to most standard works upon the question.
Page 201 - And now we breathe the odours of the glen, And round about us are enchanted things; The bird that hath blithe speech unknown to men, The river keen, that hath a voice and sings.