"Midsummer Day" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... few years in the following remarkable manner:—The land was divided into single acres, each bearing a peculiar mark cut in the turf, such as a horn, an ox, a horse, a cross, an oven, &c. On the Saturday before Old Midsummer Day, the several proprietors of contiguous estates or their tenants, assembled on these commons, with a number of apples marked with similar figures, which were distributed by a boy to each of the commoners from a bag; at the close of the distribution, each person repaired to allotment ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... penitence taking an immediate and highly effective form. The humour of the poem, which is excellent of its kind, resembles more the humour of Rowlandson than that of Hogarth. The Bedford Court House on the sweltering Midsummer Day, the Puritan recusants, reeking of piety and the cow-house conventicle, the Judges at high jinks upon the bench—to whom, all in a muck-sweat and ablaze with the fervour of conversion, enter Black Ned, the stout publican, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Schwemmelein full bold: "When thinkst thou in this country / such high feast to hold, That unto thy friends yonder / tell the same we may?" Thereto spake King Etzel: / "When next hath come midsummer day." ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... at work shone with perspiration, and either because work had been the best cure for the excesses of the preceding Midsummer Day and Midsummer Eve, or it was the general relief at the departure of the master, one man began suddenly to sing, a couple more to yawn and stretch themselves lazily in the enjoyment of their pleasant recollections; and then the talk ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... the seat of war, a series of decisive French victories had culminated in the battle of Solferino, on Midsummer Day (see ante, Introductory Note to Chapter XXVIII). But the French Emperor was beginning to think these successes too dearly purchased, at the expense of so many French lives, and, actuated either by this, or some similar motive, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... refreshment for it than you propose; for to-morrow I shall send to your cashier, Mr. Larpent, five hundred pounds at once, for your use, which, I presume, is better than by quarterly payments; and I am very apt to think that next midsummer day, he will have the same sum, and for the same use, consigned ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Wednesday (24) being Midsummer day, we sent our skiffe aland to sound the creeke, where they found it almost drie at a low water. And all the Lodias within ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... arriving after the departure of Dale in 1616 or those migrating during the seven-year period following Midsummer Day of 1618, separate regulations applied. If transported at company expense, the colonist was to serve as a half-share tenant for seven years with no promise of a land grant; if at his own expense, ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... with a sudden shrill note which grew drowsy toward the close as if he were too lazy and hot to complete it. Over the sunburnt fields shimmered the heated air. I seemed to be the only living, moving thing; the intense hush, the high noon of the midsummer day interfused my whole being so that I hardly dared to step for fear of disturbing the universal repose. It oppressed me with a sense of loneliness. A wagon coming along the road broke the spell and all things were restored ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... were feasted for a week, not only by the French, but also by the Hurons and Algonquins; and then the grand peace council took place. Montmagny had come up from Quebec, and with him the chief men of the colony. It was a bright midsummer day; and the sun beat hot upon the parched area of the fort, where awnings were spread to shelter the assembly. On one side sat Montmagny, with officers and others who attended him. Near him was Vimont, Superior of the Mission, and other Jesuits,—Jogues ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... extinguished. James Lackington (1746 to 1816), who had established himself as a bookseller in Chiswell Street, was issuing catalogues from that address from 1779 to 1793. He first started selling books on Midsummer Day, 1774, in Featherstone Street, St. Luke's. It was from Chiswell Street that Lackington dated those rambling letters which he styles 'Memoirs of the Forty-five First Years' of his life. In twelve years he had progressed so rapidly, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... One midsummer day Rodney Allison walked along the dusty road. He did not carry his head erect as usual but seemed to be pondering over ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... Since that Midsummer day, my attention, however otherwise occupied, has never relaxed in its record of the phenomena characteristic of the plague-wind; and I now define for you, as briefly as possible, the essential ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... It was midsummer day. A dull, gloomy day; and with it came the inevitable leave-taking. The door closed behind me. For the last time I left my home and went alone down the garden to the beach, where the Fram's little petroleum launch pitilessly awaited me. Behind me lay all I held dear ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... are you doing with that wagon-top ovah you?" she asked from the front door, where she stood watching his approach. He was striding along whistling as cheerily as if it were a midsummer day. He looked up and smiled in response to her call, and twirled the umbrella till the rain-drops flew in every direction in a fine spray. Lloyd felt as if the sun had suddenly come out from ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... notice to quit on Midsummer day; but Philip had answered it hisself. Thou knows I'm not good at reading writing, 'special when a letter's full o' long words, and Philip had ta'en it in hand ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... paying their vessels. They likewise provided a number of canoes; part of which were lashed two and two together to carry thirty horses which still remained alive, and answered well for the purpose; the rest were distributed among the brigantines, each having one at her stern to serve as a boat. On midsummer day 1543 the brigantines were launched into the great river, and on St Peters day, the 29th of that month, every thing being in readiness, the brigantines and canoes having defences made of boards and skins ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... on an isolated mountain top; the flaming scarlet of the poppies in the grass, the castles and battlements dimly caught on the far horizon,—the poetry, the loveliness, the ineffable beauty of Italy! Seventeen years had passed since that midsummer day when the dear form of his "Lyric Love" had been laid under the Florentine lilies, when Browning, in the spring of 1878, returned to his Italy. What dreams and ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... rifles were full of water. "Charming day!" I exclaimed to my soaked and shivering followers, who looked like kittens in a pond. They muttered something that might be interpreted "What's fun to you is death to us." I comforted them with the assurance that this was an English climate on a midsummer day. If my clothed Arabs suffered from cold, where was my naked guide? He was the most pitiable object I ever saw; with teeth chattering and knees knocking together with cold, he crouched under the imaginary shelter of a large tamarind tree; he was no longer the clean black that had started as my ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... wish to appreciate the limits within which the human ear is capable of distinguishing sounds, we should sit down in a meadow, some hot midsummer day, and listen to the subdued running murmur of the myriads of insects. Many are very distinct to our ears and we have little trouble in tracing them to their source. Such are crickets and grasshoppers, which fiddle and rasp their ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... narrow canyon. We tied the horse, and, with as many shovels as I could carry on my shoulder, and with the jug, I followed my friend, who had taken a couple of shovels and two heavy axes. It was a sultry midsummer day, and how I ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... were seven hundred yards in width; extended a level tract of those green fertile meadows, artificially drained, which are so characteristic a feature of the Netherland landscapes, the stream which ran from Ostend towards the town of Nieuport flowing sluggishly through them. It was a bright warm midsummer day. The waves of the German Ocean came lazily rolling in upon the crisp yellow sand, the surf breaking with its monotonous music at the very feet of the armies. A gentle south-west breeze was blowing, just filling the sails of more than a thousand ships in the offing, which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... St. Valentine's: The First Day of Spring: Midsummer Day: Proposal Day, September 17: Followed by Mourner's Morn (a half-hearted holiday) for the ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay
... a friend, "are you going down to the brook? I am, in a minute, so soon as I have hopped round this haycock, for there will be a grand show there presently. All the birds are going to bathe, as is their custom on Midsummer Day, and will be sure to appear in their best feathers. It is true some of them have bathed already, as they have to leave early in the morning, having business elsewhere. I spoke to the cricket just now on the subject, but he could not see that it ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... regular lot of tracks like tiny shelves up the side of the sloping cliffs, and the lowest of these gets taken by the people who are going along the coast, and is trampled down more and more, till it grows into a regular footpath, such as we were going along this hot midsummer day. ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... sense of the word, and carry on a very extensive trade in horses and mules. These, occasionally, visit the most distant fairs, traversing the greatest part of Spain. There is a celebrated cattle-fair held at Leon on St. John's or Midsummer Day, and on one of these occasions, being present, I observed a small family of Gitanos, consisting of a man of about fifty, a female of the same age, and a handsome young Gypsy, who was their son; they were richly dressed after ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... to speak my piece," answered Miss Celia, obeying a sudden impulse; and, stepping forward with her hat in her hand, she made a pretty courtesy before she recited Mary Howitt's sweet little ballad, "Mabel on Midsummer Day." ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... with. Come with me, for I cannot travel alone to-day. Think of it—Midsummer Day, on a stuffy train, jammed with people who stare at you—and standing still at stations when you want to fly. No, I cannot! I cannot! And then the memories will come: childhood memories of Midsummer Days, when the inside of the church was turned into ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... been a broiling midsummer day, too hot to sit in the verandah, too hot to stroll about the garden, or go for a ride, or do anything in fact, except bask like a lizard in the warm air. New Zealand summer weather, however high the thermometer, is quite different from either tropical ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... Spaniards solely on account of its insalubrity, was a Montpelier. Nor had any of Paterson's dupes considered how colonists from Fife or Lothian, who had never in their lives known what it was to feel the heat of a distressing midsummer day, could endure the labour of breaking clods and carrying burdens under the fierce blaze of a vertical sun. It ought to have been remembered that such colonists would have to do for themselves what English, French, Dutch, and Spanish colonists ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... playmate of the birds and butterflies, the kindly light that the waking birds and the ringing carillon welcomed,—Bebee, who was not at all afraid of him, smiled at his rays and saw in them only fairest promise of a cloudless midsummer day as she gave her last crumb to the swallows, dropped down off the thatch, and busied herself in making bread that Mere Krebs would bake for her, until it was time to cut her flowers and go down into ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... off—the only bit of real landscape beauty that Hilary had ever beheld. There, during the last holidays but one, she, her sisters, her nephew, and, by his own special request, Mr. Lyon, had spent a whole long, merry, midsummer day. She wondered whether such a ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... These tassels were fall of a golden dust called pollen, and as the wind blew it to and fro, some of the tiny grains found little green cradles along the sides of the plants, and crept into them. There they stayed, growing strong and round, until one midsummer day the plants were full of ripe, sweet ears ...
— Buttercup Gold and Other Stories • Ellen Robena Field
... and it is said that he had a clear presentiment that sooner or later he would be drawn into the struggle. Leaving his domestic affairs in the hands of his friend, the Chancellor Oxenstiern, he embarked in June, 1630, with a force of but fifteen thousand men, for Germany, and landed on midsummer day on the island of Usedom, on ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various |
