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what_the_classics_know_of_blue.txt
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what_the_classics_know_of_blue.txt
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"Then we shall see," Stepan Arkadyevitch said to himself, and getting up
he put on a gray dressing-gown lined with blue silk, tied the tassels in
a knot, and, drawing a deep breath of air into his broad, bare chest, he
walked to the window with his usual confident step, turning out his feet
that carried his full frame so easily.
"I remember, and I
know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains in Switzerland.
But even as he was, he was charming, with his fair curls, his blue
eyes, and his plump, graceful little legs in tightly pulled-up
stockings.
When now her glance met his
blue kindly eyes looking intently at her, it seemed to her that he saw
right through her, and understood all that was not good that was passing
within her.
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s figure again went behind the bush, and Levin saw
nothing but the bright flash of a match, followed by the red glow and
blue smoke of a cigarette.
Levin looked about him to right and to left, and there, just facing him
against the dusky blue sky above the confused mass of tender shoots of
the aspens, he saw the flying bird.
Venus had risen above the branch, and the ear of the Great Bear
with its shaft was now all plainly visible against the dark blue sky,
yet still he waited.
He was dressed in a long-skirted blue coat, with buttons below the
waist at the back, and wore high boots wrinkled over the ankles and
straight over the calf, with big galoshes drawn over them. He rubbed his
face with his handkerchief, and wrapping round him his coat, which sat
extremely well as it was, he greeted them with a smile, holding out his
hand to Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though he wanted to catch something.
Going towards the stable, he met
the white-legged chestnut, Mahotin’s Gladiator, being led to the
race-course in a blue forage horsecloth, with what looked like huge ears
edged with blue.
Then she recalled
the thin, terribly thin figure of Petrov, with his long neck, in his
brown coat, his scant, curly hair, his questioning blue eyes that were
so terrible to Kitty at first, and his painful attempts to seem hearty
and lively in her presence.
"Oh, here’s Madame Stahl," said Kitty, indicating an invalid carriage,
where, propped on pillows, something in gray and blue was lying under a
sunshade.
The sky had grown
blue and bright; and with the same softness, but with the same
remoteness, it met his questioning gaze.
Her name, written
in blue pencil, "Anna," was the first thing that caught his eye.
Betsy, dressed in the
height of the latest fashion, in a hat that towered somewhere over her
head like a shade on a lamp, in a blue dress with violet crossway
stripes slanting one way on the bodice and the other way on the skirt,
was sitting beside Anna, her tall flat figure held erect.
When the princess came to them, they were sitting side by side on
the chest, sorting the dresses and disputing over Kitty’s wanting to
give Dunyasha the brown dress she had been wearing when Levin proposed
to her, while he insisted that that dress must never be given away, but
Dunyasha must have the blue one.
The other, a little
younger, was lying in the grass leaning on his elbows, with his tangled,
flaxen head in his hands, staring at the water with his dreamy blue
eyes.
That bill on
blue paper, for a hat and ribbons, he could not recall without a rush of
self-pity.
Was it not youth to feel
as he felt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the wood
he saw in the glowing light of the slanting sunbeams the gracious figure
of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walking lightly by the
trunk of an old birch tree, and when this impression of the sight of
Varenka blended so harmoniously with the beauty of the view, of the
yellow oatfield lying bathed in the slanting sunshine, and beyond it the
distant ancient forest flecked with yellow and melting into the blue of
the distance?
The blue of the grass had changed to
yellow-green.
Lvov, in a house coat with a belt and in chamois leather shoes, was
sitting in an armchair, and with a pince-nez with blue glasses he was
reading a book that stood on a reading desk, while in his beautiful hand
he held a half-burned cigarette daintily away from him.
His handsome, delicate, and still youthful-looking face, to which his
curly, glistening silvery hair gave a still more aristocratic air,
lighted up with a smile when he saw Levin.
Anna had come from behind the treillage to meet him, and Levin
saw in the dim light of the study the very woman of the portrait, in a
dark blue shot gown, not in the same position nor with the same
expression, but with the same perfection of beauty which the artist had
caught in the portrait.
Carefully set to rights, with hair well-brushed, in a smart little cap
with some blue in it, her arms out on the quilt, she was lying on her
back.
said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling, as
he looked at the handsome, broad-shouldered lad in blue coat and long
trousers, who walked in alertly and confidently.
Where are his blue eyes, his sweet,
shy smile?"
Thinking of Alexey Alexandrovitch, she at once
pictured him with extraordinary vividness as though he were alive before
her, with his mild, lifeless, dull eyes, the blue veins in his white
hands, his intonations and the cracking of his fingers, and remembering
the feeling which had existed between them, and which was also called
love, she shuddered with loathing.
Just as she was talking to the porter, the coachman Mihail, red and
cheerful in his smart blue coat and chain, evidently proud of having so
successfully performed his commission, came up to her and gave her a
letter.
But, however I screw up my eyes and strain my sight, I cannot see it not
round and not bounded, and in spite of my knowing about infinite space,
I am incontestably right when I see a solid blue dome, and more right
than when I strain my eyes to see beyond it."
They will not care a rush
whether his coat is long or short,--whether the color be purple, or blue
and buff.
The youngest, whom my father loved,
Because our mother's brow was given
To him, with eyes as blue as heaven--
For him my soul was sorely moved:
And truly might it be distressed
To see such bird in such a nest;[9]
For he was beautiful as day--
(When day was beautiful to me 80
As to young eagles, being free)--
A polar day, which will not see[10]
A sunset till its summer's gone,
Its sleepless summer of long light,
The snow-clad offspring of the sun:
And thus he was as pure and bright,
And in his natural spirit gay,
With tears for nought but others' ills,
And then they flowed like mountain rills,
Unless he could assuage the woe 90
Which he abhorred to view below.
the while
Which made me both to weep and smile--
I sometimes deemed that it might be
My brother's soul come down to me;[24]
But then at last away it flew,
And then 'twas mortal well I knew, 290
For he would never thus have flown--
And left me twice so doubly lone,--
Lone--as the corse within its shroud,
Lone--as a solitary cloud,[25]
A single cloud on a sunny day,
While all the rest of heaven is clear,
A frown upon the atmosphere,
That hath no business to appear[26]
When skies are blue, and earth is gay.
I saw them--and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high--their wide long lake below,[g]
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;[29]
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channelled rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-walled distant town,[30]
And whiter sails go skimming down; 340
And then there was a little isle,[31]
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view;
A small green isle, it seemed no more,[32]
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.
During the afternoon the hall assumes a much
deeper and warmer colouring, and the blue transparency of the morning
disappears; but at eventide, after the sun has set behind the Jura, the
scene changes to the deep glow of fire ..."--_Guide to the Castle of
Chillon_, by A.
The Rhone is blue below the lake at Geneva, but "les embouchures" at
Villeneuve are muddy and discoloured.]
[30] [Villeneuve.]
[31] Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from
Chillon, is a very small island [Ile de Paix]; the only one I could
perceive in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea 110
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man 120
Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.[47]
V.
The well-known lines in Tennyson's _Locksley Hall_--
"Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue!"
stanza lvii.]
[ah] _And think of such things with a childish eye._--[MS.]
[89] {61}[Compare--
"He who first met the Highland's swelling blue,
Will love each peak, that shows a kindred hue,
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace."
In the blue depth of the waters,
Where the wave hath no strife,
Where the Wind is a stranger,
And the Sea-snake hath life,
Where the Mermaid is decking 80
Her green hair with shells,
Like the storm on the surface
Came the sound of thy spells;
O'er my calm Hall of Coral
The deep Echo rolled--
To the Spirit of Ocean
Thy wishes unfold!
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,--upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,[166] 10
'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,[167]
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.[168]
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 20
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot.
forehead remarkably good" (see lines 208-220); not
Theresa Guiccioli, who was a "blonde," with a "brilliant complexion and
blue eyes."
whose ever golden fields, 50
Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice
For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds[ca]
With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;
Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds
Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,
And formed the Eternal City's ornaments
From spoils of Kings whom freemen overthrew;
Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of Saints,
Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made[cb]
Her home; thou, all which fondest Fancy paints, 60
And finds her prior vision but portrayed
In feeble colours, when the eye--from the Alp
Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade
Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp
Nods to the storm--dilates and dotes o'er thee,
And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help
To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,
Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still
The more approached, and dearest were they free,
Thou--Thou must wither to each tyrant's will: 70
The Goth hath been,--the German, Frank, and Hun[297]
Are yet to come,--and on the imperial hill
Ruin, already proud of the deeds done
By the old barbarians, there awaits the new,
Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won
Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue
Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter
Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue,
And deepens into red the saffron water
Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest, 80
And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,
Vowed to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased
Their ministry: the nations take their prey,
Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast
And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they
Are; these but gorge the flesh, and lap the gore
Of the departed, and then go their way;
But those, the human savages, explore
All paths of torture, and insatiate yet,
With Ugolino hunger prowl for more.
I have fought and bled; commanded, aye, and conquered; 430
Have made and marred peace oft in embassies,
As it might chance to be our country's 'vantage;
Have traversed land and sea in constant duty,
Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice,
My fathers' and my birthplace, whose dear spires,
Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon,
It was reward enough for me to view
Once more; but not for any knot of men,
Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat!
Around me are the stars and waters--
Worlds mirrored in the Ocean, goodlier sight[ee]
Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass; 70
And the great Element, which is to space
What Ocean is to Earth, spreads its blue depths,
Softened with the first breathings of the spring;
The high Moon sails upon her beauteous way,
Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls
Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces,[ef]
Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts,
Fraught with the Orient spoil of many marbles,
Like altars ranged along the broad canal,
Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed 80
Reared up from out the waters, scarce less strangely
Than those more massy and mysterious giants
Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics,
Which point in Egypt's plains to times that have
No other record.
And you, ye blue sea waves!
Ye blue waves!
The Angels all were singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,
Or curb a runaway young star or two,[fz]
Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon
Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue,
Splitting some planet with its playful tail,
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.
When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale,
As Angels can; next, like Italian twilight,
He turned all colours--as a peacock's tail,
Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight
In some old abbey, or a trout not stale,
Or distant lightning on the horizon by night,
Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review
Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue.
This was enclosed in a leaden
coffin, again enclosed in another mahogany coffin, and the whole finally
placed in the state coffin of Spanish mahogany, covered with the richest
Genoa velvet of royal purple, a few shades deeper in tint than Garter
blue.
The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?--
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.[ic]
10.
Will thy yard of blue riband, poor Fingal, recall
The fetters from millions of Catholic limbs?
Again on December 1, "To-morrow
there is a party _purple_ at the 'blue' Miss Berry's.
um!--I
don't much affect your blue-bottles;--but one ought to be civil....
Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning Lady
Charlemont will be there" (see _Letters_, 1898, ii.
If he did not affect "your
blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Staël, "the
_Begum_ of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa
d'Albrizzi (the De Staël of Italy); with Mrs. Wilmot, the inspirer of
"She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady
Blessington.
Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who
was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and
"inwardly digest" _Corinna_ (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but
knew the _Divina Commedia_ by heart, and was a critic as well as an
inspirer of her lover's poetry.
The Blue!
I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether.
Why,
Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking's eye,
So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme
What I've told her in prose, at the least, as sublime?
Very true; let us go, then, before they can come,
Or else we'll be kept here an hour at their levee,
On the rack of cross questions, by all the blue bevy.
But the thing of all things which distresses me more
Than the bills of the week (though they trouble me sore)
Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting crew
Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue,
Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost--
For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by the host--
No pleasure!
[_Exeunt._
FOOTNOTES:
[609] {573}[Benjamin Stillingfleet is said to have attended evening
parties at Mrs. Montague's in grey or blue worsted stockings, in lieu of
full dress.
The ladies who excused and tolerated this defiance of the
conventions were nicknamed "blues," or "blue-stockings."
A farce by
Moore, entitled _The M. P., or The Blue-Stocking_, was played for the
first time at the Lyceum, September 30, 1811.
The heroine, "Lady Bab
Blue, is a pretender to poetry, chemistry, etc."--Genest's _Hist. of the
Stage_, 1832, viii.
_Pros._ This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child,
And here was left by the sailors.
75
_Enter CERES._
_Cer._ Hail, many-colour’d messenger, that ne’er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers;
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown 80
My bosky acres and my unshrubb’d down,
Rich scarf to my proud earth;--why hath thy queen
Summon’d me hither, to this short-grass’d green?
Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie
hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray
eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he
promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow
morning.
The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown
foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white
star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my
feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid
broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate
fibres within me as this home scene?
Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in the
Dodson family: the hat-bands were never of a blue shade, the gloves
never split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, and
there were always scarfs for the bearers.
"I know the chap as owns the ferrets," said Bob, in a hoarse treble
voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river,
like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in.
"My new blue coat as I've got on?"
and Tom's cheeks were looking particularly
brilliant as a relief to his best blue suit, which he wore with
becoming calmness, having, after a little wrangling, effected what was
always the one point of interest to him in his toilet: he had
transferred all the contents of his every-day pockets to those
actually in wear.
Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas
out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against the
window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of
hitting a superannuated blue-bottle which was exposing its imbecility
in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of Nature, who had
provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction of this weak
individual.
"Yes, Sophy," said Mrs. Tulliver, "I remember our having a blue ground
with a white spot both alike,--I've got a bit in a bed-quilt now; and
if you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her to make it
up with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you.
But the fact was
so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little
semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which
was to be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued
her in civilized life.
The plum-pudding was of the same handsome roundness as
ever, and came in with the symbolic blue flames around it, as if it
had been heroically snatched from the nether fires, into which it had
been thrown by dyspeptic Puritans; the dessert was as splendid as
ever, with its golden oranges, brown nuts, and the crystalline light
and dark of apple-jelly and damson cheese; in all these things
Christmas was as it had always been since Tom could remember; it was
only distinguished, if by anything, by superior sliding and snowballs.
Dissatisfied with the pacific aspect of a
face which had no more than the faintest hint of flaxen eyebrow,
together with a pair of amiable blue-gray eyes and round pink cheeks
that refused to look formidable, let him frown as he would before the
looking-glass (Philip had once told him of a man who had a horseshoe
frown, and Tom had tried with all his frowning might to make a
horseshoe on his forehead), he had had recourse to that unfailing
source of the terrible, burnt cork, and had made himself a pair of
black eyebrows that met in a satisfactory manner over his nose, and
were matched by a less carefully adjusted blackness about the chin.
Tom looked up with that momentary stopping of the breath which comes
with a sudden joy; then he gave a long sigh, and turned his blue-gray
eyes straight on Philip's face, as he had not done for a fortnight or
more.
She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him piteously with her
helpless, childish blue eyes.
The person who
wanted him was in the kitchen, and in the first moments, by the
imperfect fire and candle light, Tom had not even an indefinite sense
of any acquaintance with the rather broad-set but active figure,
perhaps two years older than himself, that looked at him with a pair
of blue eyes set in a disc of freckles, and pulled some curly red
locks with a strong intention of respect.
An' I'n changed one o' the
suvreigns to buy my mother a goose for dinner, an' I'n bought a blue
plush wescoat, an' a sealskin cap,--for if I meant to be a packman,
I'd do it respectable.
He had married a Miss Clint,
and at the time Mrs. Tulliver had heard of that marriage, the summer
when she wore her blue satin spencer, and had not yet any thoughts of
Mr. Tulliver, she knew no harm of Wakem. And certainly toward herself,
whom he knew to have been a Miss Dodson, it was out of all possibility
that he could entertain anything but good-will, when it was once
brought home to his observation that she, for her part, had never
wanted to go to law, and indeed was at present disposed to take Mr.
Wakem's view of all subjects rather than her husband's.
The successful Yellow candidate for the borough of
Old Topping, perhaps, feels no pursuant meditative hatred toward the
Blue editor who consoles his subscribers with vituperative rhetoric
against Yellow men who sell their country, and are the demons of
private life; but he might not be sorry, if law and opportunity
favored, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his favorite
color.
It was not Tom who was entering, but a man in
a sealskin cap and a blue plush waistcoat, carrying a pack on his
back, and followed closely by a bullterrier of brindled coat and
defiant aspect.
Maggie, thus exalted into Bob's exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of
herself; at which her worshipper's blue eyes twinkled too, and under
these favoring auspices he touched his cap and walked away.
But now it had the charm for her which any broken
ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest
habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a
grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant
from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like
tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing
the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly
blue of the wild hyacinths.
But you must wear pink, my dear; that blue
thing as your aunt Glegg gave you turns you into a crowflower.
There is a very pleasant light in
Tom's blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows; that fold in
his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it seems to imply
a strength of will that may possibly be without harshness, when the
eyes and mouth have their gentlest expression.
I think with a
shudder that her daughter will always be present in person, and have
no agreeable proxies of that kind,--a fat, blond girl, with round blue
eyes, who will stare at us silently."
"She said you had light hair
and blue eyes."
But she presently came back walking with new courage a little way
behind her husband, who showed the brilliancy of his blue eyes and
regular white teeth in the doorway, bowing respectfully.
I
don't say what more I shall do; but _that_ I shall do, and if I should
die to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,--though you'll be
blundering with the keys, and never remember as that on the third
shelf o' the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the broad
ties,--not the narrow-frilled uns,--is the key of the drawer in the
Blue Room, where the key o' the Blue Closet is.
But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes,
and the lips found a word they could utter,--the old childish
"Magsie!"
I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone in my
own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as I had
prefigured them. I walked up gravely to the window in my dusty black
coat, and looking through the glass saw all the world in yellow, blue,
and green, running at the ring of pleasure.—The old with broken lances,
and in helmets which had lost their vizards;—the young in armour bright
which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the
east,—all,—all, tilting at it like fascinated knights in tournaments of
yore for fame and love.—
Alas, poor Yorick!
He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat, fancifully
enough embroidered:—this was indeed something the worse for the service
it had done, but ’twas clean scour’d;—the gold had been touch’d up, and
upon the whole was rather showy than otherwise;—and as the blue was not
violent, it suited with the coat and breeches very well: he had squeez’d
out of the money, moreover, a new bag and a solitaire; and had insisted
with the _fripier_ upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches knees.—He
had purchased muslin ruffles, _bien brodées_, with four livres of his own
money;—and a pair of white silk stockings for five more;—and to top all,
nature had given him a handsome figure, without costing him a sous.
Such as he is who has so near the ague
Of quartan that his nails are blue already,
And trembles all, but looking at the shade;
Even such became I at those proffered words;
But shame in me his menaces produced,
Which maketh servant strong before good master.
He met one of the gardeners, whom he promised to bring some of
the nobles to inspect a special kind of blue lily, in which the gardener
took great pride.
On the king's consent, he begged furthermore
that Oropastes, Croesus, and three other nobles should be allowed to
witness the opening of the blue lily in the hanging gardens.
Boges first related that he was with the Achæmenidæ, looking
at the blue lily, and called Kandaules to inquire if everything was in
order.
She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with
astonishment and confusion.
The complete torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the
arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue
eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight.
Presently the little golden head sank down, and the
blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.
Was she a
fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve?
Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through
which her very soul was speaking.
Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied.
It
became the fashion of young men to dress themselves in blue
coats and yellow breeches in imitation of the hero, and many
of them were moved to follow Werther's example as the simplest
way of settling their love affairs.
She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep
blue eyes.
We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all
our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the
blue bed to the brown.
If the sweetest blue eyes that ever beamed beneath a forehead of snowy
whiteness, over which dark brown and waving hair fell, less in curls
than masses of locky richness, could only have known what wild work they
were making of my poor heart, Miss Dashwood, I trust, would have looked
at her teacup or her muffin rather than at me, as she actually did, on
that fatal morning.
Matilda drew a circle around herself, and another
around him; bending low, she muttered a few indistinct sentences, and a
thin, blue, sulphurous flame arose from the ground.
I stayed at the Blue Posts, where all the midshipmen put up, that night,
and next morning presented myself at the George Inn with my letter of
introduction to Captain Savage.
The former, with his
indolent and listless blue eyes and flaxen hair, trembled and blinked,
his eyelids heavy with sleep, and crossed himself.
Two or three days after Maister Wiggie, the minister, had gone through
the ceremony of tying us together, my sign was nailed up, painted in
black letters on a blue ground, with a picture of a jacket on one side
and a pair of shears on the other; and I hung up a wheen ready-made
waistcoats, caps, and Kilmarnock cowls in the window.
Notwithstanding, we behaved ourselves like true-blue Scotsmen, called
forth to fight the battles of our country, and if the French had come,
as they did not come, they would have found that to their cost, as sure
as my name is Mansie.
Some instances of correlation
are quite whimsical; thus cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf;
colour and constitutional peculiarities go together, of which many
remarkable cases could be given amongst animals and plants.
The rock-pigeon is of a slaty-blue, and has a white rump
(the Indian sub-species, C.
Moreover, when two birds belonging
to two distinct breeds are crossed, neither of which is blue or has
any of the above-specified marks, the mongrel offspring are very apt
suddenly to acquire these characters; for instance, I crossed some
uniformly white fantails with some uniformly black barbs, and they
produced mottled brown and black birds; these I again crossed together,
and one grandchild of the pure white fantail and pure black barb was of
as beautiful a blue colour, with the white rump, double black wing-bar,
and barred and white-edged tail-feathers, as any wild rock-pigeon!
From these several reasons, namely, the improbability of man having
formerly got seven or eight supposed species of pigeons to breed freely
under domestication; these supposed species being quite unknown in a
wild state, and their becoming nowhere feral; these species having very
abnormal characters in certain respects, as compared with all other
Columbidae, though so like in most other respects to the rock-pigeon;
the blue colour and various marks occasionally appearing in all the
breeds, both when kept pure and when crossed; the mongrel offspring
being perfectly fertile;--from these several reasons, taken together, I
can feel no doubt that all our domestic breeds have descended from the
Columba livia with its geographical sub-species.
What can be more singular
than the relation between blue eyes and deafness in cats, and the
tortoise-shell colour with the female sex; the feathered feet and skin
between the outer toes in pigeons, and the presence of more or less down
on the young birds when first hatched, with the future colour of their
plumage; or, again, the relation between the hair and teeth in the naked
Turkish dog, though here probably homology comes into play?
If some species in a large genus of plants
had blue flowers and some had red, the colour would be only a specific
character, and no one would be surprised at one of the blue species
varying into red, or conversely; but if all the species had blue
flowers, the colour would become a generic character, and its variation
would be a more unusual circumstance.
With pigeons, however, we have another case, namely, the occasional
appearance in all the breeds, of slaty-blue birds with two black bars
on the wings, a white rump, a bar at the end of the tail, with the outer
feathers externally edged near their bases with white.
We may I think
confidently come to this conclusion, because, as we have seen, these
coloured marks are eminently liable to appear in the crossed offspring
of two distinct and differently coloured breeds; and in this case there
is nothing in the external conditions of life to cause the reappearance
of the slaty-blue, with the several marks, beyond the influence of the
mere act of crossing on the laws of inheritance.
For instance, it is probable that in each generation of the
barb-pigeon, which produces most rarely a blue and black-barred bird,
there has been a tendency in each generation in the plumage to assume
this colour.
As, however, we never know the exact character
of the common ancestor of a group, we could not distinguish these two
cases: if, for instance, we did not know that the rock-pigeon was not
feather-footed or turn-crowned, we could not have told, whether these
characters in our domestic breeds were reversions or only analogous
variations; but we might have inferred that the blueness was a case of
reversion, from the number of the markings, which are correlated with
the blue tint, and which it does not appear probable would all appear
together from simple variation.
More especially we might have inferred
this, from the blue colour and marks so often appearing when distinct
breeds of diverse colours are crossed.
When the
oldest and truest breeds of various colours are crossed, we see a
strong tendency for the blue tint and bars and marks to reappear in the
mongrels.
Moreover, as Gartner during several years
repeatedly crossed the primrose and cowslip, which we have such good
reason to believe to be varieties, and only once or twice succeeded in
getting fertile seed; as he found the common red and blue pimpernels
(Anagallis arvensis and coerulea), which the best botanists rank as
varieties, absolutely sterile together; and as he came to the same
conclusion in several other analogous cases; it seems to me that we
may well be permitted to doubt whether many other species are really so
sterile, when intercrossed, as Gartner believes.
For instance, the blue and red pimpernel, the primrose
and cowslip, which are considered by many of our best botanists as
varieties, are said by Gartner not to be quite fertile when crossed, and
he consequently ranks them as undoubted species.
Throughout an
enormously large proportion of the ocean, the bright blue tint of the
water bespeaks its purity.
How simply is
this fact explained if we believe that these species have descended from
a striped progenitor, in the same manner as the several domestic breeds
of pigeon have descended from the blue and barred rock-pigeon!
Cats:
with blue eyes, deaf, 12.
reverting to blue colour, 160.
in pigeons to blue colour, 160.
Beneath the
wall of the house front there lies a channel, a fathom wide, paved with
cobble-stones, and beside it runs a graveled walk bordered by geraniums
and oleanders and pomegranates set in great blue and white glazed
earthenware pots.
A
collection of dim-ribbed glass decanters, metal discs with a satin sheen
on them, and piles of blue-edged earthenware plates of Touraine ware
cover the sticky surfaces of the sideboards that line the room. In a
corner stands a box containing a set of numbered pigeon-holes, in which
the lodgers' table napkins, more or less soiled and stained with wine,
are kept.
He might be seen any day sailing like
a gray shadow along the walks of the Jardin des Plantes, on his head a
shabby cap, a cane with an old yellow ivory handle in the tips of his
thin fingers; the outspread skirts of his threadbare overcoat failed
to conceal his meagre figure; his breeches hung loosely on his shrunken
limbs; the thin, blue-stockinged legs trembled like those of a drunken
man; there was a notable breach of continuity between the dingy white
waistcoat and crumpled shirt frills and the cravat twisted about a
throat like a turkey gobbler's; altogether, his appearance set people
wondering whether this outlandish ghost belonged to the audacious race
of the sons of Japhet who flutter about on the Boulevard Italien.
Eugene de Rastignac was a thoroughly southern type; he had a fair
complexion, blue eyes, black hair.
He usually wore a coat of
corn-flower blue; his rotund and portly person was still further set
off by a clean white waistcoat, and a gold chain and seals which dangled
over that broad expanse.
He had left off wearing the corn-flower blue
coat, and was sumptuously arrayed, summer as well as winter, in a coarse
chestnut-brown coat, a plush waistcoat, and doeskin breeches.
The keen, bright blue eyes had grown dull, and faded to a steel-gray
color; the red inflamed rims looked as though they had shed tears of
blood.
The driver, in a blue-and-red greatcoat,
dismounted and let down the step.
de Restaud's blue boudoir and Mme.
My youth
is still like a blue and cloudless sky.
I saw an enchanting form, a countenance full of graciousness, a dazzling
colour, blue eyes beaming kindness; you may imagine that my conversion
was from that moment decided.
The day of his first examination
arrived, and he presented a handsome appearance in his blue uniform with
brass buttons and lacquered boots.
The examination lasted ten days, and
Volodya, having passed brilliantly, returned on the last day no longer
in blue coat and grey cap, but in student uniform, with blue embroidered
collar, three-cornered hat, and a gilt dagger by his side.
We crossed the western branch of the Delaware, having laboured hard over
the mountains called the Blue Ridge, and pitched our tent near the banks
of the river.
Along the part of the road where there was
but little snow, were smooth sheets of ice of a blue-black hue, lying
between the snow and the bare field, and glittering in patches as far
as the eye could reach.
But grown-up she was, nevertheless, and after the dance was
ended, the dark-haired man pulled her down on his lap; she tore herself
away, but still she sat down beside him.
Oyvind's eyes turned to the man, who wore a fine blue broadcloth suit,
blue checked shirt, and a soft silk neckerchief; he had a small face,
vigorous blue eyes, a laughing, defiant mouth.
cried his comrade; but before he could say more,
Oyvind inquired,--
"Who is that in the blue broadcloth suit, dancing with Marit?"
"You are
number two," said he to a boy with blue eyes, who was gazing up at him
most beseechingly; and the boy danced out of the circle.
Then it was that the school-master, in a blue
broadcloth suit, frock coat, and knee-breeches, high shoes, stiff
cravat, and a pipe protruding from his back coat pocket, came down
towards them, nodded and smiled, tapped one on the shoulder, spoke a
few words to another about answering loudly and distinctly, and
meanwhile worked his way along to the poor-box, where Oyvind stood
answering all the questions of his friend Hans in reference to his
journey.
The others viewed him now more
composedly, and observed in what respect he had altered, in what he
remained unchanged; looked at what was entirely new about him, even to
the blue broadcloth suit he wore.
[Footnote 1: The hulder in the Norse folk-lore appears like a beautiful
woman, and usually wears a blue petticoat and a white sword; but she
unfortunately has a long tail, like a cow's, which she anxiously
strives to conceal when she is among people.
"Hold thy head up; within thee, too,
Rises a mighty vault of blue,
Wherein are harp tones sounding,
Swinging, exulting, rebounding.
Song--Address To The Woodlark
Song.--On Chloris Being Ill
Song--How Cruel Are The Parents
Song--Yonder Pomp Of Costly Fashion
Song--'Twas Na Her Bonie Blue E'e
Song--Their Groves O'Sweet Myrtle
Song--Forlorn, My Love, No Comfort Near
Song--Fragment,--Why, Why Tell The Lover
Song--The Braw Wooer
Song--This Is No My Ain Lassie
Song--O Bonie Was Yon Rosy Brier
Song--Song Inscribed To Alexander Cunningham
Song--O That's The Lassie O' My Heart
Inscription to Chloris
Song--Fragment.--The Wren's Nest
Song--News, Lassies, News
Song--Crowdie Ever Mair
Song--Mally's Meek, Mally's Sweet
Song--Jockey's Taen The Parting Kiss
Verses To Collector Mitchell
1796
The Dean Of Faculty
Epistle To Colonel De Peyster
Song--A Lass Wi' A Tocher
Song--The Trogger.
And by thy een sae bonie blue,
I swear I'm thine for ever, O!
The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley: