Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Countries; Country Life
The East bow’d low before the blast,
In patient, deep disdain.
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.
Matthew Arnold—Obermann Once More. St. 28.
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid Nature.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. I. L. 181.
The town is man’s world, but this (country life) is of God.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. V. L. 16.
There are Batavian graces in all he says.
Benj. Disraeli—Retort to Beresford Hope (descended from an Amsterdam family), who had referred to Disraeli as an “Asian Mystery.”
O crassum ingenium. Suspicor fuisse Batavum.
Oh, dense intelligence. I suspect that it was Batavian (i.e. from the Netherlands-Batavia.)
Erasmus—Naufragium.
A land flowing with milk and honey.
Exodus. III. 8; Jeremiah. XXXII. 22.
I hate the countrie’s dirt and manners, yet
I love the silence; I embrace the wit;
A courtship, flowing here in full tide.
But loathe the expense, the vanity and pride.
No place each way is happy.
William Habington—To my Noblest Friend, I. C. Esquire.
Far from the gay cities, and the ways of men.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XIV. L. 410. Pope’s trans.
To one who has been long in city pent,
’Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
Keats—Sonnet XIV. L. 1.
And as I read
I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note
Of lark and linnet, and from every page
Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead.
Longfellow—Chaucer.
The country is lyric,—the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama.
Longfellow—Kavanagh. Ch. XIII.
Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashion’d country seat,
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient time-piece says to all,—
“Forever! never!
Never—forever!”
Longfellow—The Old Clock on the Stairs.
Rus in urbe.
Country in town.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. XII. 57. 21.
Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A beehive’s hum shall soothe my car;
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall, shall linger near.
Sam’l Rogers—A Wish.
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.
Nor shall Thule be the extremity of the world.
Seneca—Med. Act III. 375. Vergil—Georgics. I. 30. Thule, the most remote land known to the Greeks and Romans, perhaps Tilemark, Norway, or Iceland. One of the Shetland Islands. Thylensel, according to Camden.