From THE JOURNALS OF ANNE LANGTON:  A GENTLEWOMAN IN UPPER CANADA

Tuesday, January 15. [1839] Another brilliant morning, but severe frost.  John had one trip for hay before breakfast, and afterwards took another walk with me -- not a very long one.  We bent our steps in the contrary direction to yesterday.  The wolves and foxes had been enjoying themselves as well as ever;  I shall begin to be acquainted with the tracks of the beasts of the forest.  I looked back at our own tracks, and wondered whether mine would be recognised as that of a woman, enveloped as are my feet in two pairs of stockings, a pair of socks, my house moccasins, and another pair over them.

Wednesday, January 23.  This was the very coldest day we have had.  The thermometer was 20 below zero, with a strong wind.  It blew very hard during the night;  the mercury stood only three degrees above zero in our room whilst we were dressing.  At noon it rose to five, and once we contrived to raise it to eight, which is what a good fire has been able to do for it.

Tuesday, April 16.  Springtime makes busy work, notwithstanding the men and women about the house.  John was to-day chopping firewood, I kneading bread, and the other ladies also busily occupied.  This department of mine I intend now to resign, but to-day I had to pay the penalty of mismanaging matters so as to have to bake on a washing day.  There is no unmixed good in this world.  A wash-house, a boiler, and an oven are great comforts, but they consume an immensity of wood.



~ Edited by H.H. Langton.  CLARKE, IRWIN & COMPANY LIMITED. 1950.

If I had a ship,
I'd sail my ship,
I'd sail my ship
Through Eastern seas;
Down to a beach where the slow waves
     thunder ~
The green curls over and the white falls
     under ~
Boom!  Boom!   Boom!
On the sun-bright sand.
Then I'd leave my ship and I'd land,
And climb the steep white sand,
And climb to the trees,
The six dark trees,
[. . .]
And there would I rest, and lie,
My chin in my hands, and gaze
At the dazzle of sand below,
And the green waves curling slow,
And the grey-blue distant haze
Where the sea goes up to the sky. . . .

And I'd say to myself as I looked so lazily down at
     the sea:
"There's nobody else in the world, and the world
     was made for me."

~ [Apologies to:  A. A. Milne WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1924] The Island.

"...feeling more snowy behind the ears
than he had ever felt before." ~ Pooh

Today ~

"Into many a green valley
     Drifts the appalling snow;"  ~ W. H. Auden

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore.  "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

~ A. A. Milne, "Pooh Builds a House" - THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1928.

There is in my old picture-book

A page at which I like to look,
Where knights and squires come riding down
The cobbles of some steep old town,
And ladies from beneath the eaves
Flutter their bravest handkerchiefs,
Or, smiling proudly, toss down gages. . .
But that was in the Middle Ages.
It wouldn't happen now; but still,
Whenever I look up the hill
Where, dark against the green and blue,
The firs come marching, two by two,
I wonder if perhaps I might
See suddenly a shining knight
Winding his way from blue to green ~
Exactly as it would have been
Those many, many years ago . . .

Perhaps I might.  You never know.

~ A. A. Milne WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1924

WHEN I WAS ONE AND TWENTY

When I was one-and-twenty
   I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
   But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
   But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
   No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
   I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
   Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs aplenty
   And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
   And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

~ A. E. Housman (1859 - 1936) English classical scholar and poet.

Hot Chocolate Would be Good

Thought for Today ~ 

"We both felt, while bought bobbles are more immediately attractive, our hearts warm more to the home-made offering . . . lace bags in a rainbow of colors, filled with lavendar from the garden and tied with a ribbon. . ."

~ Maud Tomlinson, The Illustrated Diary of a Victorian Woman, 1880.

Smile for Today ~

"Love should run out to meet love with open arms.  Indeed, the ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children venturing together into a dark room."

~ Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque.

Seven days until Valentine's Day