Wayside Pictures Through France, Belgium, and Holland: By Robert Bell |
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Wayside Pictures Through France, Belgium, and Holland (Classic Reprint) Robert Bell No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
amongst ancient antiquity Antwerp appears Avranches beauty Beguin Beguinage Belgium Breton bridge Brittany Bruges built Caen carried carved cathedral character charming château church close colours costume crowd dance dark Dinan dolmen dress effect English eyes façade fairy fête Flemish Flemish literature France French Ghent grand hands Havre head height hill Hôtel de France hour hundred imagination inhabitants interest interior king lady Liège light live Loire look Michel Mont St Morbihan Nantes never night Norman Normandy numerous Orleans passed peasantry picture picturesque Pontorson population priests promenade quay reliques Rennes Revolution river road rock roof Rouen round ruins sands Saumur scene seen shadow side sort soule spot stone strange streets summit superstitions table d'hôte taste tion tomb tower town traveller trees valley Vesdre village walls whole William the Conqueror women woods
Popular passages
Page 136 - DESCRIPTION OF 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 drown a province, does but spring a leak...
Page 146 - Ewpr/Ka a second time. But he was not a man to be turned from his purpose by the obstinacy of others, nor to be baffled in it by their incapacity ; baffled, however, he was now sensible that he must be, if...
Page 210 - Banished down there to the burying-ground of the chapel, he will hear neither the chants of the service, nor the prayers which ransom the departed. Here is his place. We can see his grave from our windows ; we can send our smallest children every evening to pray here; this earth is the property of the dead, no power can take it from them, or exchange it for another.
Page 225 - Every fête is marked by distinct features peculiar to itself. That of St. John is, perhaps, on the whole, the most striking. Throughout the day, the poor children go about begging contributions for lighting the fires of Monsieur St. Jean ; and, towards evening, one fire is gradually followed by two, three, four ; then a thousand gleam out from the hill tops, till the whole country glows under the conflagration. Sometimes the priests light the first fire in the market-place ; and sometimes it is...
Page 353 - Rubens is not thoroughly known. Here we have him in the full glory of his broad, liberal hand, his extraordinary power of composition, his hot colours, his jolly angels and voluptuous Flemish women, with hogsheads of red wine in their faces. It is only in Belgium that we have the means of...
Page 197 - ... of early Christian monuments. This strange association throws open a large and perplexing field of inquiry. Christianity seems to have pursued her triumphs, with bold and rapid steps, into the very recesses and last strongholds of that gigantic idolatry which once exercised so marvellous an influence over the human mind ; and in some instances to have wrestled with its sorceries on the very spot where they were enacted. Many of the Druidical localities are connected by exulting tradition with...
Page 132 - M. Hugo was at the Opera on the night the sentence of the Court of Peers, condemning Barbes to death, was published. The great poet composed the following verses: — 'Par votre ange envolee, ainsi qu'une colombe, Par le royal enfant, doux et frele roseau, Grace encore une fois!
Page 360 - Schut, Seghers, Van Oort, David Teniers, Neefs, Jordaens, and Crayer. Out of these traditions has grown up a love of pictures, that pervades all classes of the inhabitants ; and it is by no means rare to discover choice specimens of the Dutch and Flemish schools in some of the poorest houses.
Page 305 - The men of fortune do, leaving their chateaux to go to ruin, while they indulge their love of pleasure and gamble away their resources in the salons of the capital ; but men of letters stay behind to dignify and enrich the country of their birth and their labours. Fashionable novelists, dramatists, and mystics in poetry, philosophy, and religion swarm to Paris, as the only place where they can obtain encouragement and remuneration ; but students who attach themselves to severer pursuits, are content...
Page 240 - In the long winter nights when the fishermen's wives, whose husbands are out at sea, are scared from their uneasy sleep by the rising of the tempest, they listen breathlessly for certain sounds to which they attach a fatal meaning. If they hear a low and monotonous noise of waters, falling drop by drop at the foot of their bed, and find that it has not been caused by natural means, and that the floor is dry, it is the unerring token of shipwreck. The sea has made them widows...