Victorian Writers

"The pretty white , so called because of its flowering at that season, is also a , and its is a brilliant white. Its beauty and purity, as well as the season when it blooms, insure it being a favourite in every garden."

"Travellers penetrating to the find ' flourishing alone, and spreading its light s in a region of "thick-ribbed ice;" ' was found by on ; and in and Iceland, where there is scarcely light enough for the humblest vegetables to flourish, ' not only endures the sleet and bitter cold, and spreads its blossoms under such inhospitable circumstances, but actually ripens abundance of seed."

", in his work on the "Channel Islands," gives a most interesting picture of the harvest in . On the 10th of March and on the 20th of July, all the inhabitants repair to the shore, with such vehicles as they can press into their service, and they gather the weed in great quantities. Some they dry and use for fuel, and the remainder is laid upon the land as manure. It suits potatoe land remarkably well, and on this account is eagerly seized upon in Ireland, where it is carried at least fifteen miles inland."

"We repaired to the . The powdery appearance was caused by glands scattered all over the ; this, and its general aspect, showed it to be the . No locality could be more favourable to its growth than these woods, where the immense boulders of greeting us at every step left no room to doubt the nature of the rock."

"and others give us such attractive accounts of the charms of , the quantity of nourishment contained in them, and the desirability of out better appreciation of their excellencies, that we set about making ourselves acquainted with them with hearty good will."

"Mr. W. F. French, of , prepares very pretty fern-glasses, arranging within them Lilliputian rocks and ruins. They are to be had at the s in ; and, though they do not look by any means beautiful when unfurnished, they have an excellent effect with the full complement of mosses, s, and ferns. The best place for such cases is in a window to the north, and twice a week in the summer the glass should be removed and wiped dry, a little rain-water being administered occasionally to keep up the moisture. These fern-cases make very elegant drawing-room ornaments. All the small hardy and half-hardy ferns are well adapted for the s, as are also many of the 's and all the mosses."

"THE ISLAND OF , separated from by , is not inhabited, except by rabbits burrowing in the heath, the wild bee in its rose-leaf cell, and the which rests and lives on its rocks. The late Governor, , to whom the belonged, built a cottage on it to shelter the fisherman or shipwrecked mariner; but it has fallen into decay. The stormy petrel, rarely found on the British coast, may be taken here with the hand; but it has the singular defence of ejecting a fetid fluid from its bill when alarmed or hurt, which often saves it from capture."

", tittle-tattle, tale-bearing, are the very bindweed of society; as the bindweed destroys the flower, so do they choke every kindly feeling and every noble thought."

"All our farinaceous plants contain abundance of , especially wheat, barley, oats, maize, rice, ; and the s differ from each other in size and form so decidedly, that they cannot well be mistaken by a careful observer. They are prepared for the microscope, and sold as polariscope objects, because the examination of a starch granule with shows it with a beautiful black cross, revolving with the polarizer; or, if over a selenite stage, a brilliant play of colours is obtained."

"... books, like Louisa Lane Clarke's The Microscope (1858) and 's A World of Wonders Revealed by the Microscope (1859), were directed to broader audiences in a drive to recruit more new microscopists from the general public."

"There is felt by many seaside ramblers a want of some unscientific, easy to the s and contents of s on the English coast. There are most valuable works by }} and }} on the subject, but more expensive and more scientific than suits the minds of those who seek for health and rest in the sweet summer months by the seaside. To supply that want I purpose describing the Seaweeds, not exactly in the order arranged by Algælogists (though a systematic aid is given for the use of Collectors); but, taking the coast anywhere as a book, opening and closing as the great sea ebbs and flows, I shall begin with the first-tide pools, and find interest for my readers until the next range is uncovered, and more objects may be found. Then we shall take advantage of a gale of wind, and see what the waves cast up from depths unattainable by mortal hand."

"The enjoys such , and so much authority as to be almost a king in his inland territory. By his manorial rights he receives tithes of corn, apples, and lambs, he presides over the petty court which assembles three times a year, called, The Chief Pleas, at which, though he has no vote, yet his veto, or consent is necessary to all their decisions. By virtue of his patent (which however he never exerts,) he can prevent the building of any house without his leave, or the solemnization of any marriage without his consent, and the of the island is also in his gift."

"The }} constitute by far the larger proportion of the inhabitants of the ; they vary considerably in number at different periods of the year, in consequent of their being short lived, and breeding being arrested during the depth of winter. In spring they become exceedingly numerous; so that, in May or June, a good colony will give off a swarm of more than 20,000 bees, and retain a sufficiency of workers to rear the brood and feed the young grubs that remain behind. This number may appear incredible; as as 300 bees weigh only one , and a good swarm often weighs above five s, the statement admits an easy proof."

"and possess one great recommendation as sitters, in the soft and abundant supply of downy feathers that so specially distinguish these varieties; for under no other hens do the eggs appear to maintain a higher or more constant temperature."

"The first, and by no means the least important, consideration of every prospective poultry keeper is the situation and construction of the poultry houses and yards. It is trued that poultry may be kept almost anywhere; good specimens of s have been reared in an attic, and many very fine ones have never known there was any world beyond a small back yard in the street of a county town. These, however, are extreme cases; and success under such disadvantageous conditions can only be achieved by constant attention, extreme cleanliness, and great judgment in supplying artificially those requirements of the birds which the place of confinement does not afford. The best of all s on which to establish a poultry yard is , or sand resting on or a substratum of gravel. If the soil is clayey, or from other causes of wet, the whole should be well drained. This is essential to success, as a wet soil is more inductive than any other circumstance of cramp, , and other diseases."

"The structure and habits of the family or group of pigeons are so peculiar and so strikingly distinct from those of any other birds, that they demand special attention. The pigeons were formerly classed by the majority of naturalists along with the , the true poultry, and by others with the or -like birds; but more accurate observation has rendered evident the fact that they form a perfectly distinct family, distinguished from all other birds by the singular manner in which their young are nourished. Unlike the true gallinaceae—which are hatched in a very perfect state and able to follow the parent hen within a few hours after birth—the young pigeons are born in a most immature and helpless condition, and are fed with a curdy secretion, produced in the crops of the parents, the "soft food" of the pigeon-fancier. This is expressly produces at the period of hatching, for the support of the callow young."

"This treatise, small as it is, could hardly be regarded as complete, without directions for the manufacture of , a drink so much in fashion, that had some made yearly for her own especial benefit. , an old and quaint bee author, who printed his work entitled "," with a phonetic alphabet of his own invention, gives the exact recipe for making mead, as used by "our renowned Queen Elizabeth of happy memory;" but the taste of our race has become more refined and we should now fail to appreciate the mead brewed with and sweet-briar leaves as relished by the virgin queen ..."

"Having described the breed known as the Carrier, and the varieties allied to it, we have now to consider the different kinds of s, or those that are remarkable for their powers of flight and their attachment to the home in which they have been reared and first flown. There are numerous varieties that exhibit this peculiarity, such as the Dragon, the ordinary flying , and the Skinnum, or mongrel race, between these two breeds. Among the pure breeds that can be flown good distances may be mentioned that called the . But the varieties in which this homing faculty is developed to the highest degree are unquestionably the different races of Belgian birds, which are termed in England by the general name of Antwerps, and in Belgium are known as , s, Demi Bees, &c."

"A good many causes tend to make good masters and mistresses quite as rare as good servants.... The large and rapid fortunes by which vulgar and ignorant people become possessed of splendid houses, splendidly furnished, do not, of course, give them the feelings and manners of gentle folks, or in any way really raise them above the servants they employ, who are quite aware of this fact, and that the possession of wealth is literally the only superiority their employers have over them."

"Simplicity is a great element of good breeding."

"As for the exhortation with which Mr. ------ closes his letter, that I will not "go down to my husband's plantation prejudiced against what I am to find there," I know not well how to answer it. Assuredly I am going prejudiced against slavery, for I am an Englishwoman, in whom the absence of such a prejudice would be disgraceful."

"Though the Negroes are fed, clothed, and housed, and though the Irish peasant is starved, naked, and roofless, the bare name of freemen—the lordship over his own person, the power to choose and will—are blessings beyond food, raiment, or shelter; possessing which, the want of every comfort of life is yet more tolerable than their fullest enjoyment without them."

"I want to do everything in the world that can be done."

"His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect."

"Sredni Vashtar went forth, His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white. His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death. Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful."

"By insisting on having your bottle pointing to the north when the cork is being drawn, and calling the waiter Max, you may induce an impression on your guests which hours of laboured boasting might be powerless to achieve. For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as carefully as the wine."

"I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient, but it seems I asked too much of fate."

"I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English."

"Whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from Asia Minor, every one assumes that it has been carried out "under orders" from somewhere or another; no one seems to think that there are people who might like to kill their neighbours now and then."

"Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte."

"You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood."

"All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other people's. A few gifted individuals manage to do both."

"Eleanor hated boys, and she would have liked to have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the yearning of a woman who had no children of her own."

"You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed."

"But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school."

"I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion," [Clovis] resumed presently. "They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster."

"The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally."

"Romance at short notice was her speciality."

"People talk vaguely about the innocence of a little child, but they take mighty good care not to let it out of their sight for twenty minutes."

"Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on a professional matter, and when Madame lost her temper you usually found it afterwards in the bill."

"Women and elephants never forget an injury."

"I might have been a goldfish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I got."

"Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people."

"The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went."

"Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact."

"It occurred to me that I would like to be a poet. The chief qualification, I understand is that you must be born. Well, I hunted up my birth certificate, and found that I was all right on that score."

"The Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistress."

"The death of John Pennington had left his widow in circumstances which were more straitened than ever, and the Park had receded even from her notepaper, where it had long been retained as a courtesy title on the principle that addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts."

"Poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up."

"And they tried to rag me in the smoking room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards, a sort of bovine ragging that suggested cows buzzing round a gadfly and thinking they were teasing it. So I got up the next morning at early dawn – I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, and the grass looked as if it had been left out all night."